OLDEST AUSTRALIAN

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 434, 15 May 1937, Page 5

OLDEST AUSTRALIAN

107 YEARS OF AGE Critic Of Modern Girls Sydney, May 7. On the eve of celebrating her 107th mirthday, Australia’s oldest inhabitant, Mrs. Sarah Musgrave, of Auburn, a Sydney suburb, had one complaint. Her children and relatives kept too strict a watch on her and prevented her, to use her own words, from “sneaking out.” “There is a lot of fun in this world l for me yet, and J have no intention of missing it,” she said. *’l am as happy as anybody else. I nave no. an enemy, and peone still 'ike coin.ng to see me. ’ She Rinded m-schlevjiis'v when the interviewer asked if she thought she would see her ,108th year. “You listen to me, young man,” she said. “I am here until I pass 110: then I will be quite prepared to go to Heaven.” Mrs. Musgrave believes explicitly in religion, but she does not make a fetish of it. She reads and writes letters, and uies only one pair of normal spectacles. Occasionally, she admitted, she chafed under the necessity of being forced to remain in bed, but, she added: “You can tell the world that being 107 is not as bad as ; some might think —and if ever you are out this way on your rounds, call in and you will get the best cup of tea you ever tasted.” Mrs. Musgrave is a severe critic of the modern uung woman. She herself has never used powder in her life. She has never had an argument, and she has never danced. If she could live her life over again she says she would go on the land, where she would never see young women with painted finger-nails or short skirts. “One of the reasons- I have kept my health is tha; I never danced? ehe said. twists girl’s insides. There would be less sickness among them if they Were not gallivanting about ’at ?ance halls until midnight and af er? Aeroplanes are another of Mrs. Musgrave’s bugbearg. “If God had wanted men to fly, He would have given them wings,” she said. “It is tempting Providence.”