“We're two opposites, we argue like buggery, always have,” David said.
“I can have an argument and forget it in two seconds; Gwen, she doesn't.
“But that was the way it worked. And it worked well.”
That attraction has now spanned six decades, with David and Gwen celebrating their diamond anniversary on Thursday, April 15.
Commemorating the occasion with a dinner with their daughters, Karyn and Kylie, and their families, David and Gwen say they can't believe they have been married for 60 years.
Both growing up in Cobram, Gwen had originally planned to move to Melbourne after turning 18, though she never left.
“We went to school together, but he was down in Melbourne on a dairy farm, I was up here,” she said.
“He came back in the August and his brother brought him around the home with a couple of mates. I remember they were going to learn how to dance.
“For about a week, he came around a couple times, and I said to my mum, Ruby, ‘Oh I think he is nice'.
“She said, ‘Oh Gwennie, not that no-hoper’," Gwen recalls with a laugh.
“But I never ended up going to Melbourne. I stayed and we courted for a couple years until we got married.”
David said he finally got Ruby's approval, who called them the "greatest of mates".
“I always reckoned she loved him more than she loved me in the end,” Gwen said.
Spending the first 15 years of marriage in Cobram working on the orchards, the family eventually moved to the Mallee town of Birchip after buying its first TAB store.
There they spent the next three years, though the beginning was anything but easy.
Living in a condemned shop two doors down from their TAB for the first three months, the experience was indicative of their true nature as hard workers.
“It had tin walls, no windows, it had one power point in the entire house,” Gwen recalled.
“With the condensation, all those walls ran wet and we're cuddled up. We're in all one room,” David added.
“We done it tough, but there was good days.
“But we all had to do it. We survived. It was a good three years in Birchip for the kids, they didn't want to leave in the end.”
Hoping to move closer back to family in Cobram, the family settled in Cohuna in 1979 — and has never left.
Running the TAB stores in Cohuna and Kerang, the pair retired in 2000, though David continued working until 2010.
Now they spend their days with friends and family — and playing "plenty of bowls".
Asked what kept them together all these years, Gwen was fairly no-fuss with her response.
“My parents always said ‘you make your bed, you lie in it’," Gwen said.
“You sort of make do, we got on fine, had our ups and downs like everyone else.
“We enjoy each other's company, we both played bowls and golf.
“Life was just busy and you keep going.
“We hang in there each day.”
But at the end of the day, what really keeps the Campbells’ marriage strong is the family they've built over their 60 years together.
“Gwen has been the strength for them (their children),” David said.
“But they've been real good backstops for us. We help each other.”
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