Gwen Eadie reflects on 90 years living on Daisy Hill farm and in Bega

In fact, she was to become a nonagenarian turning 90, something she could only smile and laugh at when she mistakenly realised she was a year behind.

"Am I? Oh, well, I'll be 90," she said with a chuckle.

"I don't feel any older, because I've been here for a long time, I played a lot of golf, got a lot of exercise."

Born on March 2, 1934, Gwendoline 'Gwen' Margaret Smith was raised on Daisy Hill farm with her parents, her four brothers and four sisters, milking cows, feeding pigs and riding horses to get the dairy cattle in.

"When it came time to get the cattle of an afternoon you got your horse and off you went and brought them in. Mine was Gypsy, actually it was my brother's, and she was gorgeous," Gwen said.

"We rode her a lot, the lot of us, if we had to go anywhere, we hopped on the pony and go. Later when we started work, we got push bikes from Daisy Hill to Bega."

She said the town had changed quite a bit from when she was a young woman, when she worked as a bookkeeper at the TAB and in retail at Fossey's. From the evening dances in a small hall alongside the Post Office, to how Carp Street facades had changed aesthetics.

"I'd have girl friends here on a Friday night, we'd go for a walk downtown. It was good, it was nothing to go for a walk down the street and window shop. The town used to dress their windows lovely," she said.

Though her father was protective of his five daughters, and Wolumla was a no go for evening events, it was dancing where she met the young man who become her husband in 1955, Jim Eadie.

The couple purchased a house on Hill Street and built a home, which was close to unchanged 60 years later, with gold art nouveau floral wallpaper - which has grown on her - recycled geometric carpets, and framed photographs forming a mosaic of memories across walls.

"I've had a damn good life, I reckon," Gwen said with a smile, "I'm still here.

"I think it's what I've done, I don't sit around here all day, I go for my walk every morning, it's a reason to get up. You get up, get organised and go for a walk."