Shirley Williams of Mount Pleasant, Mackay turns 97
Shirley Williams has made almost a century’s worth of memories but one especially evokes a warm nostalgic grin.
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Shirley Williams has made almost a century's worth of memories but one especially evokes a warm nostalgic grin.
The Mount Pleasant great grandmother, who turns 97 today, said it was the Tuesday her Uncle Emil knocked on the door with her own bicycle.
"I was dreaming about a bike (for years) I was so keen to have one," Mrs Williams recalled.
"I came home in the school lunch hour, went a few yards on it and by six o'clock that night, I could ride that bike," she said with a laugh.
Mrs Williams has lived in her hillside Mackay home for 47 years after moving up from South Australia with her late husband Max.
She said the day after they first met, they had already decided to have three sons.
"He was an amazing man," Mrs Williams said.
"I met his sister first of all and they always talked about, 'Max this and Max that. Max with the lovely brown eyes. Max with the wavy hair.'
"Oh my godfather. Anyway, we lived at the beach so his sisters would come down every other weekend and I'd go up to the country."
She said Max was then serving overseas during World War II but his sisters would write letters to their brother telling him about her.
"The day came they heard he was coming home on leave, and they said, 'We love having you (Shirley), you know that, but we would like to have Max to ourselves'," she said.
"He arrived on the Sunday. They rang me on a Tuesday - they didn't know what to do with him.
"He'd just suddenly fallen very, very ill. They said, 'Could you come up for the weekend and cheer him up?'"
He was there at the train station waiting and the rest is history with a wedding and two kids, Malcolm and Robyn, to follow.
But the cold winters of South Australia and a new car would set in motion a move interstate to sunny Queensland.
Mrs Williams said they took a road trip to Mackay where Max had previously visited and come back "looking like a bronze god all tanned".
"He brought me up and I wanted to stay everywhere, we loved it," she said.
But after they moved into their "beautiful" East Mackay home, Mrs Williams said they were "eaten alive" with sand flies or nearly blown away by the wind.
The couple then shifted to the Hilltop Caravan Park before settling in their Mount Pleasant home, during which her husband worked his way up to becoming the general manager of Mackay Television Station (later 7 News).
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Mrs Williams said the biggest change to Mackay over the past 50 years had been the boom of the mining industry which had "ruined" the "lovely, big sleepy town" she once knew.
She said younger generations were also less patient buying things they could not afford.
And as a grandmother of six and great-grandmother of 15, Mrs Williams wanted to pass on just one piece of wisdom: appreciate and respect your elderly and use your manners to thank them when they gave presents.
"(The younger generation) have too much now," she said.
"No one acknowledges anything.
"All the grandmas say the same."
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Originally published as Shirley Williams of Mount Pleasant, Mackay turns 97
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