Good nature and wry humour help Emily reach 100th birthday

"Just enjoying every day as it comes," says birthday girl Emily Burke on the simple secret behind her longevity.
Today Mrs Burke celebrates 100 years in the business of life with a birthday luncheon with friends at Carter Court rest home in Carterton.
"I'll just be meeting up with old friends and enjoying their company," Mrs Burke said.
She has seen Halley's comet twice over with a 76-year gap between sightings and remembers the fanfare surrounding aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's first transtasman plane crossing in 1928.
Mrs Burke, the youngest of six children, was born in the small town of Kohukohu in the Bay of Islands in 1908 and after leaving school got her first job at the local general store.
She then became a teacher at Kohukohu's Maori school, an experience she said was hugely satisfying.
"It was very rewarding to help the little Maori children understand the rest of the community."
In was in those days that she met her future husband, Bill, who was transferred to Northland from Auckland with the Post Office.
The young couple were married in Kohukohu and lived in various town and cities around the North Island, including Kawakawa, Feilding, Whangarei and Lower Hutt, before retirement to Palmerston North.
Mrs Burke's daughter, Yvonne Cottier, said Mrs Burke has always been busy, active and accepting toward others and said she didn't know what has kept her mother going so long but that her mother's good nature may be a contributing factor.
"Mum has been a wonderful wife and is a wonderful mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother," Mrs Cottier said.
"She is a true friend and has played an active part where possible in her grandchildren's lives.
"She has a very accepting nature and has beaten the odds in life and health many times.
"She has a wry sense of humour, which even now can surprise and delight her family!"
Mrs Burke is also a great rugby fan and supporter of the Hurricanes her favourite player is Tana Umaga and she has kept a keen eye on his career ever since he was a boy playing in Wainuiomata.
She said her card from the Queen was lovely and that it was also very nice to receive one from Prime Minister Helen Clark.