Mount Maunganui's Audrey Urwin celebrates 100th birthday on New Year's Day

A recent photo of Audrey Urwin who is celebrating her 100th birthday on the first day of 2022. Photo / Supplied

Aside from the guaranteed public holiday, Audrey Urwin knows another upside to a New Year's Day birthday: "My family always remember."

But this birthday is special. Today, the Mount Maunganui resident turns 100.

Urwin, who lives at aged care facility Malyon House, will spend today at her son's home in Matua with her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, toasting to a century of life.

Born in 1922 in Morrinsville, Urwin knows the meaning of hard work, spending much of her life milking cows on farms across Waikato and Auckland.

She's been caring for others since childhood and as the oldest of seven children, helped to raise her younger siblings.

She moved to Mount Maunganui in the 1960s with her husband Clyde Urwin. The pair married in April 1941 and had five children.

Later in life, she cared for her mother until she passed away and then for Clyde, as he had emphysema and lived with other injuries.

"I just got on with it," said Urwin.

Her second-oldest son Keith Urwin said his mother had "always been a very reliable and steady person".

"She was the oldest of seven so it was her job to bring up the other children in the family. The nurturing started there.

"And a lot of her life was spent farming and working hard."

Asked how it feels to turn 100 on the first day of the new year, Urwin said she didn't know any differently.

"I have always done it this way."

Keith, 78, said the family felt "very proud" to be celebrating his mother's centenary year.

"Not many people get this far. She has got loss of short-term memory but she can still hold her own with conversation about family and the past."

Urwin said she wasn't the type of person to set new year's resolutions as she "wouldn't be able to keep them".

But Keith said his mother "set a standard" for him and his siblings to live up to in regard to helping others.

She volunteered at Mount Maunganui Care and Craft Centre for many years after Clyde passed away and was passionate about giving back to her communities.

She didn't smoke, only drank alcohol on occasion and did yoga up until she was 86.

"She led a pretty controlled life," said Keith.

But Urwin - also a passionate gardener who learned Spanish in her 70s - believed she didn't take care of herself particularly well.

"I just lived life."

And her advice for living a long life carried a similar sentiment: "Just live it. It is there to be enjoyed.

"But you have got to work hard."

She said she felt "proud" to be part of five living generations of family and always loved spending time with her great and great-great-grandchildren.

Her birthday would be spent having an afternoon tea with family and sitting in her "favourite blue chair" overlooking the water at son Gary's home.