Warrnambool's Elizabeth Hurley celebrates her 103rd birthday

Whether it is watching her beloved Geelong Cats play a game of AFL or watching cricket on TV, Elizabeth loves sports of all kinds.

She also loves to read and is the "brains trust" of any crossword puzzle, her family says. And her motto is to always "look ahead, never look back".

When asked if she was looking forward to her 103^rd birthday, Elizabeth quipped it was inevitable birthdays came along. "You can't stop them," she said.

She celebrated with her two children - Paddy and Jacinta - her nieces and nephews and some friends with lunch at the RSL.

Celebrating his mum's 103^rd birthday was a special treat for Paddy, who missed Elizabeth's milestone 100^th and 101^st birthdays because of COVID-19 lockdowns which kept him on the other side of the country in Western Australia.

Elizabeth, affectionately known as Bett Bett, grew up on a farm at Carranballac, near Skipton, with her seven brothers and sisters where she loved to ride horses.

She used to walk the two miles to school, the boys often running ahead in winter and lighting fires in the culverts on the side of the road so the girls could stop along the way to warm up.

Elizabeth along with her younger sister went to Melbourne to train as teachers during the war years. They lived in the building across the road from the exhibition buildings, and all the young ladies would go to the top floor to watch the soldiers march past.

World War II memories are ones Elizabeth still doesn't like to talk about.

"It was terrible. We knew a lot of those boys and many did not come back. That's why I hate war," she said.

Sometimes they would have to practice blackouts in Melbourne during the war when the sirens would be sounded. "It could be quite scary," Jacinta said.

Elizabeth was sent to teach at a small school in the Mallee at Propodollah - a place she fondly remembers.

But one night she was to meet up with a cousin at a ball during the war years but he didn't show.

The town's policeman instead turned up to deliver the news he had been killed in a training plane accident.

Elizabeth also taught at Warrnambool Primary School in Jamieson Street until she married Kevin Hurley who she met at a ball in Cavendish and she moved to Hamilton after the married.

Elizabeth loved teaching, and the children loved her. She said it was a joy to meet her former students who had grown up to parents themselves.

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