“Drink champagne, be happy and don’t do anything to hurt anyone else.”
This is the advice for a long and happy life from Noosa’s Betty Stanton who celebrated her 101st birthday on Wednesday 5 March.
Her longevity must also be the result of her good genes. Her younger brother is a healthy 94 and her grandfather was still hoeing the fields in India at the age of 104.
Born in western Queensland on a sheep station, Betty used to travel to school in a horse and sulky driven by her brother.
“I loved it. I used to ride everywhere,” she said of her outback life.
After WWII Betty travelled to Papua New Guinea and worked for the army.
“I had the most beautiful life up there. It was lovely. I was treated like a queen,” she said.
Betty met her husband in PNG and they moved to Sydney, but later divorced.
At the age of 50 and living in the coastal Sydney suburb of Dee Why, Betty decided she needed a change.
She took a drive to Noosa, returned to Sydney and sold up her Dee Why property, and has been here ever since.
Betty watched Noosa grow from a handful of houses with a dirt road and a corner shop to a busy resort town, but prefers it had stayed the way it was.
“It was lovely, beautiful. I could walk around in the night time and go to the beach. No worries. Everyone knew each other.
“There was only me and the house next door. There was a dirt road.
“I’ve seen the whole place develop.
“(Now) I hate it. I’ve seen it go down hill.
“The people are different. They’re not friendly now. They just walk past you. Before we were like one big happy family. Everybody came and had drinks or lunch or something. Now they hardly say hello to you.”
Betty planned to celebrate her birthday with friends and family including her nieces and her 94-year-old brother.
