“PIXIE” Wastell may have just celebrated her 100th birthday, but the great grandmother still leads an active life and can be found swinging the bowl at Frankston Bowling Club every Wednesday night.
The bowl might be dropped or be a bit wobbly but it still ends up on the kitty, according to her daughter Glen Carr, who describes her mother as “very competitive and determined”.
“Her passion for bowling has almost been an obsession,” she said.
Born Olive Jean on 18 October a hundred years ago in Western Australia, Ms Wastell was the eighth child of ten siblings and was brought up in Melbourne by her father’s sister and husband.
She married in 1938 and shared 57 years of married bliss, two children Rob and Glen, grandchildren Kate, Tyson, Ciara and Shaun and great-grandchildren Milo, India and Caspian.
Ms Carr says her mother was always on the go, singing in the church choir, doing callisthenics and playing both billiards and tennis on the table and court at home.
There has been little that has set Pixie back, says Glen, despite having a pacemaker, diabetes and suffering a bad car accident several years ago that robbed her of some older memories.
When her husband Ern became sick about 50 years ago Pixie worked to keep the family and to buy her first car, turning 48 by the time she got her driver’s licence.
“But throughout the years, it’s been bowls that has brought her friendships and exercise and been a major part of her life,” Ms Carr said.
Ms Carr said her mother’s birthday was celebrated four times – at the bowls club, at her residential care home, with 58 family members from around the country, and at the senior citizens centre.
“She said ‘now, no fuss’, but she really loved it all.”
