VAL SMITH will have a tough job blowing out 100 candles on her birthday cake this year.
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The centenarian has joined an exclusive club, celebrating her birthday on Wednesday with her family and a letter from the Queen.
Born in 1922, Mrs Smith grew up on a farm in Nemingha and lived an interesting life - including a stint with the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force as an acting sergeant in the 11th Stores Depot in Townsville.
"The war was on and you thought you'd better do your bit, I was lucky enough to go into what they called 'R-Group', where all my bosses were chemists," she said.
"We used to make 44-gallon drums of cough mixture and it was so interesting."
The women used to bottle up the giant urns of cough mixture before they were sent out to servicemen fighting the war.
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On weekends, they would head to the canteen where they would dance the night away and hope for an invitation to dinner from one of the American soldiers.
"You'd get friendly with the American soldiers because they had wonderful food, they used to go out to the farms and buy all this fresh food," she said.
"Otherwise you'd have bully beef every day."
As a young girl she worked at Treloars in accounting from what they called the 'crow's nest'.
It's where she met her childhood sweetheart, and the man she would one day marry, Phil.
"He worked in the grocery department, there were three boys there and they used to send lollies or notes in a cup up the lines," she said.
"I think we just took it for granted that we'd end up together."
The pair got married and had five children, Janine, Joanne, Jacqueline, Michelle and David. They owned the Smith's Store on Macquarie Street for 19 years.
Mrs Smith volunteered for Tidy Towns and Northcott at the old second-hand shop.
If you ask her, she still doesn't feel 100. The secret is a happy family and a wonderful husband, she said.
"I did have a wonderful husband and a father for the children, we were childhood sweethearts and I couldn't have asked for anybody better than my husband," she said.
"I've got a wonderful family, I've been very lucky."
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