The couple are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary today – six decades after their wedding appeared on the front page of the Guernsey Press in 1966, of which they still have a copy.
Asked for the secret to a long and happy marriage, the couple said there had been plenty of ups and downs, but their ‘true friendship’ had carried them through.
‘When you say for better or for worse, we meant it,’ said Mrs Cormack.
‘You take the ups and the downs. Trust, love, and also, at the end of the day, Christopher has always been my best friend.’
Their paths might actually have crossed long before romance blossomed.
As a young girl, Mrs Cormack attended a children’s party organised by the Royal Naval College in the 1950s, where young officers dressed as pirates to entertain hundreds of children.
One of those officers was Mr Cormack.
She remembers walking a makeshift plank and jumping into the arms of a waiting ‘pirate’. Years later, the couple realised that pirate may well have been her future husband.
They later met properly through mutual friends in Guernsey and married at the Town Church when Mrs Cormack had just turned 21, and Mr Cormack was 31.
‘My father had told me once, when I was a youngster, that for a good, happy and healthy life, you should marry someone who’s nine years your junior,’ said Mr Cormack.
‘That didn’t influence my choice, but here we are. And I can absolutely say that he was right.’
Their reception was held at the Old Government House Hotel, followed by a dance in the evening, before the newlyweds managed a brief honeymoon around Mr Cormack’s Royal Marines commitments.
‘It was a day like today,’ said Mrs Cormack. ‘Windy, blustery, but beautiful. The sun was shining.’
Mr Cormack’s career subsequently took them away from Guernsey, including to the Far East and London, but the island continued to call the island home, and in 1980 they returned permanently following his retirement from the Royal Marines.
‘It was always our plan to come back home,’ said Mrs Cormack.
She remembers an island where green buses still ran and people knew one another well, although both agreed Guernsey – and life generally – had changed enormously over six decades.
Through it all, however, their relationship has endured.
‘There is a magic that you can’t describe,’ said Mrs Cormack. ‘We often realise we’re both thinking the same thought at the same time.
‘The magic changes as you grow, the world changes, but there is a magic.’
The couple have two daughters, Elizabeth and Caroline, and seven grandchildren, and have recently become great-grandparents to India Rose.
Throughout their marriage, they have devoted considerable time to charitable causes.
After their daughter worked at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, they became involved in fundraising efforts to support and develop it when it was at risk of closure.
‘When we first found it, the A&E department was open on one side, exposed to the weather and it had a tin roof,’ said Mrs Cormack.
‘You couldn’t hear a stethoscope in the rain. The hospital has now changed completely. It wasn’t us, but yes, we got the ball rolling.’
Mrs Cormack’s work for child healthcare in South Africa was recognised with an MBE in the 2008 New Year Honours.
Their diamond anniversary celebrations this weekend will include church and a lunch for friends – including some who attended their wedding.
Rather than simply celebrating themselves, they said the milestone is a chance ‘to say thank you to all those who have helped us along the way’.
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