“ I have won a prize everytime for Easter with that chook there. Well it’s a tea cosy and I wear it on my head and I’ve won a bottle of wine and all sorts of goodies with it. I’m an Anglican and one of our ministers came up to me and said ‘Hey! Can I have a lend of your chook? I need a hat!’ He won too! Just last year one of the girls on the bus tour needed a hat, so she said,’ Rhoda, can I have the chook?’ She won the prize too. Everybody’s won with it! See that little Bronco Bear there? Well about 5 of us oldies used to go and watch the State of Origin and my friend had that bear and she died, so the family gave me the Bronco Bear to carry on the team. I’m the only one left now. They’ve all gone. I have a friend in the village and she’s Bronco mad so I will bequeath it to her. We have so much fun picking the footy each week. I have a friend here, dear Harry who on the 2nd March will be 101. Harry and I have known each other for many years and he has a beautiful voice. Well Harry and I would get together and tell each other news about everyone but now we are the only two left, so the conversation is very short..hahahaha! Everybody loves him. He’s a real gentleman and looks much younger.
I just turned 100 and I had 2 birthday parties and I had a lovely time. Actually all told, I had 4 birthday cakes because down at the Lighthouse Club they made me a beautiful carrot cake. I’ve just not long stopped volunteering there. They look after me now and I received a lovely bunch of flowers. I volunteered there for about 15 years. I worked in the kitchen and it was a lot of fun. We all got on well together and let’s be honest, it was time I gave up. I used to fill the hot water jugs and they were frightened I’d burn myself. Now I just sit there like everbody else and they wait on me.
I had four children and my second son had a gallery in Surry Hills and he had tribal artefacts from places like New Guinea. He’d gone to Vanauatu to an island and purchased some art. He came home and wrote it all up on his computer, told Roz his wife that he didn’t want dinner, as he was just too tired, went to bed and didn’t wake up. He was only 66, too young. They have 2 daughters and 2 granddaughters. My son Bruce has 2 sons and a daughter and 2 granddaughters. And then my daughter Bronwyn has 2 daughters and two grandaughters as well. I’m waiting for that boy to come along.
I was born in Campsie and when I was 5 my parents decided they wanted to return to England. I had a younger brother. It was so jolly cold we were all back here in 14 months. Mum said everything froze on the clothes line and that was that. My father was a grocer. There were ration tickets during the war and people who didn’t use their tea coupons would give them to Dad and swap for groceries. You could only get so much sugar or tea a week. That’s just how it was.
I lived and went to school in Neutral Bay, went to business college and ended up in a bank and was there for 7 years. I got married in 1940 and had 2 children during the war. My husband was then in the airforce. Prior to that he was in radio. I went back to live with Mum and Dad and after the war Dad decided that he wasn’t going to get ahead in Campsie so he went back to broadcasting and got a job at 4BC in Brisbane. I lived in Brisbane for a long time till I came here 22 years ago.
I had a cousin here in Crowley and when her husband died she asked me to come down to visit one day. I said, This would be a nice place to finish and I’m still trying. I think we had the best times. It’s not going to be easy for people from now on. It’ss changed so much, our world, and technology is beyond my grasp now.
I loved all the Royal Doulton and Shelley china. The average person isn’t really interested in that anymore because they can’t put it in the dishwasher. When my birthday came we had some boxes here of cut glass and crockery and everybody could take what they wanted. One plate that was left was Carlton Ware and it was my grandmother’s plate so it was over 100 years old. Nobody wanted it so I nicked it back myself and I’ve put it somewhere in a cupboard. It’s not going to an op shop. it has a background. Someone, after I go will see its worth.
My earliest memory was back when we lived at Campsie. I remember seeing a pram in our back garden. There were roses in the garden and the pram had a net over it and my baby brother was in it. I peered through the net and saw a cat all curled up in there. I remember running to mum and telling her there was a cat in with the baby. I would have been 3 and I remember that so well. My brother was a cat lover for the whole of his life and when he was little I remember him sitting on the back step with a cat beside him and he always had a cat running behind him somewhere. I used to love picnics with my parents at Mona Vale and swimming in the surf, picking Flannel flowers in Frenches Forest and playing cricket and rounders on Wakehurst Parkway.
I love musicals. Gilbert and Sullivan, Sound of Music, Pirates of Penzance and all that wonderful music. Until recently, everytime they played the old song Maggie, Peggy and I would get up and dance. When it was my birthday at The Lighthouse Club, David Reece was performing and he played Maggie. I stood up in the one place with Peggy and went like this (wriggles in her seat and laughs). We’ve been doing this for so long, it’s been fun.
I remember I said to you last time we met for my 99th birthday, you don’t know if you’re going to live to 100 and you will lose your friends so make sure you make younger friends because you can be very lonely. If I could give any advice it would be this poem. I’ve always had a copy nearby.”
If I Had My Life to Live Over by Nadine Stair
If I had my life to live over,
I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.
I’d relax, I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances.
I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would perhaps have more actual troubles,
but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.You see, I am one of those people who has lived sensibly and sanely,
hour after hour, day after day.
Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had to do it over again,
I’d have more of them.
In fact, I’d try to have nothing else.
Just moments,
one after another,
instead of living so many years ahead of each day.
I’ve been one of those people who never goes anywhere
without a thermometer, a hot water bottle,
a raincoat and a parachute.
If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.
If i had my life to live over,
I would start bare foot earlier in the spring
and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daises.