World War II veteran Joyce Daymon is preparing to celebrate her 100th birthday in style.
The Woodend resident is returning to Shangri-la resort, Fiji, with friends and family for her big day in May – where she celebrated her 99th last year.
An overseas adventure is fitting for someone who spent her earlier years helping planes take flight for the Royal Australian Air Force.
She was just 18, working retail at the time, and had hoped to become a driver, but was steered toward training to become a flight mechanic.
Joyce enlisted at Perth on October 27, 1943, and served as an aircraftwoman at RAAF Pearce until her discharge on June 25, 1946.
“I liked the work I did. It was very interesting and I liked the regularity of everything,” she said.
Joyce also enjoyed the friendships she made and the “smart uniforms” were another fond memory.
She was stationed on a base at Bairnsdale when news of the war’s end broke: a celebration there that she’ll never forget.
Joyce returned to Western Australia and worked in retail after the war. She married a Melburnian, Reginald, in July 1951 and they decided to move to Victoria.
Her husband died in September 1995 and soon after she relocated to Woodend to live nearby family.
Joyce is a member of the Kyneton RSL and was a special guest at a recent Mount Macedon Dawn Service where she read out the Ode to the Fallen and had her story shared.
Her secret to a long life is to “live a good, clean and happy life and eat a little of everything you like”.
