“I worked for the St Vincent De Paul Shop for 25-odd years, maybe more, and I worked for Catholic Women’s League, which disbanded when they found we were all too old to do the catering,” Doris said.

“I worked with the homes for the aged, I used to call the cards for the Hoy, and all that stuff. And then I worked for the lapidary club because my late-husband was a gem cutter.”

Doris said she had lived at McLean for six years, was very happy there and sometimes got a taxi down to the CBD.

“It couldn’t be better. It takes pressure off my family,” she said.

“But I come and go as I please, because I’m fit and well and I’m able to.”

It was not always that way for Doris, however. When she first arrived at McLean as an 86-year-old, she had suffered a stroke and cataracts had left her partially blind.

“My son bought a clear view monitor. You put the papers on the platform under the machine, push a couple of buttons and the print came up enlarged on a TV screen,” Doris said.

It was not easy, but Doris overcame that adversity and said she is now reading newspapers, books and ‘everything’.

“I love reading,” Doris said.

“I always think of my parents, with eight children. The old bush school was six or seven miles away and we had a horse and a spring cart to take us. My parents insisted that we go to school and we all learnt to read and write. 

“Now, before I went to the United States I met people here in Australia who can’t read and write, and that shocked me. It really shocked me.

Anyway, I was always grateful that my mother and father insisted we go to school, it wasn’t easy, but the eight of us could all read and write.”

Doris also loves the pot plants in her garden and said growing flowers is her passion.