Creative centenarian young at heart

THURSDAY marked the one hundredth birthday of Ballarat resident Joy Learmonth.

Ms Learmonth was born in Wedderburn, Victoria and has seen many changes in her lifetime, born the year that construction began on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

She travelled to school via a horse and buggy which was driven by her older sister Georgie, and lived in a house with no electricity, instead using candles, lamps, and Coolgardie safes to store food.

“There have been so many, many changed over the last 100 years,” said Ms Learmonth. “My sisters and I rode to school on a pony, three of us on one pony.

“We had a Coolgardie safe and later the iceman came with ice for our ice chest.”

Throughout World War Two she worked for the coding department of the Department of Defence at Victoria Barracks on St Kilda Road in Melbourne.

During that time there were no streetlights due to government enforced blackouts, but ditches on the side of the road to jump into in case of an air raid.

A group of women, including Ms Learmonth, who worked nightshift would meet at Flinders Street Station and walk to the Barracks in the dark.

In 1943 Ms Learmonth married Russel in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe, while he was home from the war on leave.

“There were many, many happy memories but especially when my husband Russel returned safely at the end of World War Two,” said Ms Learmonth.

“Family has always been important to me.”

Following the war, the couple had five children and lived in Marysville, the Western District, the Murray Valley, Woodend, Melbourne, Gisborne and finally Ballarat.

Ms Learmonth now has grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Art was an important aspect of her life, and Ms Learmonth was a porcelain art teacher in Northern Victoria and the Macedon Ranges and she ran an art gallery in Daylesford in the 1980s.

She also has published volumes of poetry with her first collection Landscape published in 1998 and The Half-way Tree published in 2010.

Ms Learmonth said her secret to a long and healthy life was all about community and learning.

“The secret is caring for and helping others,” she said. “Seeing things from another’s perspective.

“I’ve always been optimistic and independent, and always wanting to learn.

“’That has kept me young at heart.”