By Luke Voogt
As Brenda Mullins prepares for her 104th Christmas she still remembers her third in England, while World War I raged, as if it were yesterday.
“I was on my dad’s shoulders and we were just coming home from a relative’s party,” the 103-year-old told the Indy.
“I can remember the frost and him saying, ‘look, there’s a zeppelin’. It didn’t mean anything to me because I didn’t know what it was.”
The Grovedale resident remembers childhood Christmas gatherings and playing games like Ludo.
“You’d probably laugh at the games nowadays,” she said.
“They were real family affairs back then. There were no motor cars – so everyone lived close to mum and dad.”
The first gift she remembers was a miniature shop, with “eight tiny little jars on the shelf” containing a lolly each.
“I remember how thrilled I was: ’oh my goodness, a shop!’” she said.
She moved with husband Reginald and their 7-year-old son to Australia in 1947 for “a few hundred pounds”, before the post-war migration really picked up.
“It was freezing and my husband and I sat at lunch and said, ‘let’s migrate’,” she said.
“The year after that they were coming out for 10 pounds!“
After months living in hotels they received the key to their new Box Hill home, just a fortnight before their first Australian Christmas.
This Christmas the great grandmother will see one of her elderly sons and his family.
“I like what (Christmas) represents – we are churchgoing people – and all the extra effort people put into it to make it nice,” she said.
“And I’ve got wonderful friends that will take me out for a meal.”
Brenda also plans to put her deft hands to the piano keys to play carols for fellow residents at Belmont Grange.
“We’ll probably have some today,” she said.
A music teacher in England, Brenda started her “musical life” in her 40s after her children grew up, playing for major Australian opera and ballet companies.
She learnt piano after hearing her older brother play a hymn.
“When I was 5 I said, ‘how do you play that?’” she said.
“I was so thrilled with that that I kept it up.”
As for the secret of living to see 104 Christmases, Brenda said:
“I wish I knew because I’d make a fortune!”
