Joyce Bult may be on the verge of raising the bat on 100 years, but she says she’s only just getting started.
Mrs Bult will celebrate her 100th birthday on December 11, and is getting there in style.
“I look after myself and get out as often as I can. I try and keep up with the news and keep thinking, I think that’s the secret. Don’t let things get behind you, keep it in front of you,” Mrs Bult said
“My uncle used to drink like a fish and he made it to 110 so I think I have his genes.”
Mrs Bult was born in Creswick, near Ballarat, in 1917, the eldest of three siblings. She moved to Footscray with her family just before starting school, before shifting to Sunshine.
She is currently in the Keilor Retirement Village, and was living in her own unit until a month ago when she decided “I’m almost 100, I think it’s time for someone else to cook for me”.
She said she remembers the hardships of the Great Depression vividly (“that was very tough, if you sat down for a meal you didn’t dare leave anything”), knitting socks for soldiers in World War II, and she saw Phar Lap in the flesh at Flemington.
After leaving school at 14, Mrs Bult had jobs as a dressmaker, at Sunshine Pottery, Adams Cakes, and then running service stations with her husband, Vern. She’s seen the world change, from living in the first double-storey house in Sunshine, to the explosion of modern technology.
“We used to get really excited when a car would go past, that was a big thing back then,” she said.
“Now they’re everywhere. The world is a very different place now.”
Mrs Bult will celebrate with four generations of her family in the coming weeks.
