Dancing holds key, says Olive, 108

Fifteen-year-old Shannon Skudder of Whangarei has her photo taken with her great-grandmother Olive Oldfield, who turned 108 yesterday. Photo / Peter de Graaf

Live a decent life, don't smoke, drink or go wild, but try to do plenty of dancing. Ballroom dancing, preferably.

That's the advice from Olive Oldfield on how to live a long life, and she should know.

Northland's oldest person celebrated her 108th birthday yesterday at Radius Baycare in Haruru Falls with four generations of descendants.

There was, needless to say, no drinking or smoking at her combined birthday party and rest home Christmas do, but there was a cake, another card from the Queen, masses of flowers, and dancing by kids of Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Kaikohe.

"I've lived a decent life. I've tried to live a respectful life, and I've kept good company. That's important, too. I've had a pretty good life, one way or another," she said.

Her advice to younger Northlanders (which is all of them) is simple: "Just make the most of your life".

Olive's oldest memories go back 100 years when she was a girl of 8 growing up on Great Barrier Island. She later went to live with her grandparents in Mangere, left school at the age of 14 to become a nanny and then a seamstress, married in 1927 and had two children.

During World War II she drove trucks for the Red Cross.

In 1940 the family moved to Northland to manage the Ngawha Spa Hotel, later buying a farm where Ngawha prison stands today. They returned to Auckland in 1948 where her lifelong love of dancing spurred her to start two social clubs, one of which is still running.

She returned to Northland aged 89 and lived in a caravan while she had a house built on Whangarei's Lookout Hill. Only at the age of 98 was she forced to give up her garden and donkeys and move into a rest home.

She has four grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

Rosemary Puddle, of Paihia, said her mother could no longer walk and her short-term memory wasn't the best - but there was nothing wrong with her health or sense of humour.

She took no medication and never caught a cold. If anything she was in better shape now than on her 107th birthday.

No official records exist of New Zealand's most senior residents but Olive is almost certainly Northland's oldest person. Peg Griffin of Paraparaumu was New Zealand's oldest person until she died in October aged 110. UK-born Florence Finch, who died in Hawke's Bay in 2007, holds the New Zealand record of 113 years.