THURSDAY marked the one hundredth birthday of Ballarat resident Joy Learmonth.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been so many, many changed over the last 100 years,\u201d said Ms Learmonth. \u201cMy sisters and I rode to school on a pony, three of us on one pony.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a Coolgardie safe and later the iceman came with ice for our ice chest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout World War Two she worked for the coding department of the Department of Defence at Victoria Barracks on St Kilda Road in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
A group of women, including Ms Learmonth, who worked nightshift would meet at Flinders Street Station and walk to the Barracks in the dark.<\/p>\n
In 1943 Ms Learmonth married Russel in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe, while he was home from the war on leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were many, many happy memories but especially when my husband Russel returned safely at the end of World War Two,\u201d said Ms Learmonth.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamily has always been important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the war, the couple had five children and lived in Marysville, the Western District, the Murray Valley, Woodend, Melbourne, Gisborne and finally Ballarat.<\/p>\n
Ms Learmonth now has grandchildren and great grandchildren.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n