Queen delivers best wishes

By Jane Gardner

Millbrook resident Bruce Cullen recently scored a century, and not with a cricket bat, he celebrated his 100th birthday.

With such a milestone achieved, there was one very special card that arrived in the mail all the way from Buckingham Palace.

Hanging on a string in his loungeroom are birthday cards from family and friends and also from Federal MPs, the Premier and the Governor of Victoria, the Governor General of Australia, the Prime Minister of Australia and, most importantly, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who sadly passed away recently on 8 September.

Bruce was born on the 22 September 1922 in the small NSW town of Murrumburrah where, in nearby Jugiong, his father was a farm hand, “cutting trees and getting rid of rabbits.” Bruce’s family lived in a one-room tin shack. He was the eldest of six children, with three brothers and two sisters. As was often the way in those days, Bruce never went to school, but at the age of 14, went to work as a roustabout. At 19, with WWII underway, Bruce enlisted in the army, also getting engaged on the same day.

Bruce trained as an engineer before being posted to Darwin, where he worked as a ‘wharfie’, winch driving, loading and unloading ship supplies for men fighting on the front. He was also trained in deep sea diving, in the event he was needed for salvage work on sunken ships. He was eventually sent to Port Moresby, then on to an island off Borneo called Labuan (part of Indonesia).

According to Bruce, the soldiers thought the swamp on the island would keep the Japanese out. However, they managed to get through, raiding Bruce’s camp in the early hours one morning and a short battle occurred. There was one Australian casualty (“He didn’t get out of bed quick enough” Bruce says) and a lot of Japanese casualties.

After the war, Bruce returned to his then wife and first son where, together with his growing family of (eventually) three boys, he worked variously in farming, as a linesman for the Murrumburrah Shire and then in the local flour mill where he eventually became a miller. During this time, despite not being able to read music, Bruce also enjoyed playing piano accordion in local pubs and at private parties where, in return, he received “plenty of free beer”. In 1960, Bruce was transferred to Ballarat where he continued working as a miller for a company called Bunge.

Bruce eventually moved to Millbrook with his partner Bev, of 34-years, where he devoted himself to his impressive garden, growing flowers, fruit trees and veggies and keeping up to date with the lives of his extended family, including his 3 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.

Bruce celebrated his 100th birthday with friends and family at the Wallace Hotel.