TWO remarkable milestones have been celebrated at Shepparton’s Harmony Villages retirement home recently. On Thursday, September 26, Lorna Pittaway marked her 101st birthday, surrounded by family, friends, staff and her husband, Bill, who recently turned 100.
The couple is also set to celebrate another incredible achievement in January 2025 – their 80th wedding anniversary.
Lorna Dorothy Pittaway, née Oliver, was born on September 26, 1923, in Rochester. She grew up on a farm near Lockington, where her family raised sheep and grew crops.
William Earnest Pittaway, or Bill as he is better known, was born September 14, 1925, in Golden Square, Bendigo. Bill’s family lived on a dairy farm at Kangaroo Flat, where they milked cows and bottled the milk for selling.
Both Lorna and Bill have witnessed incredible changes over the past century. One such example is the ‘milk run’ whereby in the past people received milk via a horse and cart delivered to their homes, rather than going to the store. The milk run was originally established by Bill’s great grandfather who delivered the milk on foot with a large yoke over his shoulders with a bucket on each end containing the milk.
Bill recalls delivering milk as a young boy and selling it for 1 ½ pence a pint. In today’s terms, this means that milk was sold for 2 cents for around ½ a litre or approximately 5 cents a litre. Most people these days know milk is around $3 a litre.
During the Great Depression, Bill was fortunate to gain employment in Lockington as a “butcher boy”, a career he remained in until being enlisted to the Royal Australian Air Force in 1943 at age 19.
Bill and Lorna married in Townsville on January 5, 1945, prior to the war ending. They went on to have two sons together, Kevin and Denis. In 2016, Bill and Lorna moved to a unit at the village and in 2022 they moved into the Residential Home, where they celebrated their milestone birthdays.
