Win Follett has seen the world turn.
In her lifetime, she has seen it turn from a war in Europe, to the Pacific, and back again through the Middle East. She has seen the other economic downturn, and the other pandemic; the space age, the nuclear age, and the age of climate change.
She has seen the rise fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of seven empires including the British one, the eradication of smallpox and the discovery of penicillin.
She has lived through the moon landing, and the Mars landing, the exploration of our outer solar system, and the terms of 27 Australian prime ministers, 19 US presidents, and five British monarchs.
Mrs Follett has seen the world turn, and on the eve of her 105th birthday on Thursday, she looks back on her century happily.
She is not a huge fan of television, and thinks we could all be eating better; home-cooked meals and homegrown vegetables are something she feels have gone by the wayside as the modern world turns.
She thinks we need to be careful of the way the economy is going; she saw the last big downturn after all. And there's nothing so beneficial for everyone as chipping in, playing fairly and by the rules, and working hard.
Mrs Follett was the youngest of seven children, five boys and two girls. She was born on her father's property called Clareville at Merriwa on August 18, 1918. As a young child, she was not interested in dolls.
"When I was six, I preferred playing with the boys. I didn't like dolls or anything," she said. "I grew up knowing how to use a hammer and nail and all that business."
When her older brothers went to war, Mrs Follett found herself at home with her younger brother, her father, and a sheep property to run.
She learnt to shear, and mend the cuts and knicks that come with working on the land.
"They were working and I wanted to be with them," Mr Follett said.
"I was able to do that, but they kind of looked after me. I suppose they were happy (to teach me) until I might have done something wrong, and then they would make me go home again; only to the outside of the back door, you see.
"I was never away from them."
Mrs Follett married an Army sergeant. They honeymooned at the Merriwa pub, before he went off on tours of the Middle East and later New Guinea. Mr Follett had been a friend of Win's older sister and used to come by the house to play cards.
"I wouldn't go into that history," she said. "It doesn't matter how I met him, but we had a great life."
Mr Follett worked as an accountant after the war, and the couple lived in South Australia for a time in the early years of their marriage. They later moved to Port Macquarie and eventually Nelson Bay.
When their two children, Sandy and Daryl, were grown, Mr and Mrs Follett travelled the world. She visited the US and South America, Europe. She now lives in care at Mayfield, where she was surrounded by friends and family for a high tea to celebrate her milestone birthday on Thursday.
Mrs Follett was born Clara Winsome Collins, but growing up everyone went by their second name. It was a simpler world then, she said; one where the value of a person was in their good nature and work ethic.
"You would be very interested in what went on," she said.
"You could walk the streets of Sydney at any time; I walked home at midnight to my parents' rented house, on my own, and you were never afraid of being knocked over or anything like that. There was no nonsense going on."
Asked what the younger generations could learn from all Mrs Follett had seen and lived through, she had similar no-nonsense advice.
Eat well, she said. Home cooked meals preferable, but strictly "no muck"; home grown vegetables when you can get them.
The uncertain economy? "You want to look out," she said definitively.
Show respect, work hard, and always walk on the left side of the footpath.
Thus spoke Mrs Follett.
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