23 October 2024
Everybody loves a birthday celebration at Harbour Hospice, so when patient Ngaire Duncan recently turned 100 its kitchen staff made her a beautiful big chocolate birthday cake. Ngaire, from Birkenhead, attends hospice’s Day Group programme, a patient support group that meets fortnightly to empower and connect patients with one another.
Ngaire says she couldn’t have received a nicer surprise when the cake was brought out. “Everybody is interested in everybody else in the nicest possible way at Day Group. They’re all just so great and I’m so happy to be a part of it,” she says.
Ngaire was born on 23 July 1924 and claims she’s not surprised she has made it to 100. “When I was 18, I had my palm read and I was told I would live to 100 or more,” she says. The palm reader also told her she’d marry three times, at the ages of 20, 27 and 39, and those predictions came true too.
Having the ability to see the funny side of life is what has kept her going, she claims. “You’ve got to have a sense of humour and not take yourself too seriously. And if you can’t sleep because you’re running over all your worries, have a piece of chocolate. That sometimes works.”
She’s had some good luck along the way, too, like winning a lottery when she was in her forties. “From that moment on I made a promise to myself that I would always own a freehold home,” she says. Over the years she has bought and sold nine properties and made a profit on each one. She has created and run three successful businesses - a mobile hairdressing service, a lingerie shop in Milford and a motel in Peka Peka, north of Waikanae, that she built from scratch.
All her life Ngaire, who has two daughters, has been told that she looks much younger than she is. “When I was 38 I was introduced to a man who was 24 and after we went out a few times he told me he wanted to marry me. When I told him I was 38 he literally fell off his bar stool.” Even today, people are shocked when she tells them she’s 100, she says.
A self-confessed extrovert, Ngaire gets her energy from being around people and that’s why she enjoys attending Open Doors so much. She also receives regular visits from a hospice community visitor, Gladys, and the pair get on so well Ngaire invited Gladys to her 100th birthday party. “We just have so much fun and so many laughs. That’s what life is all about.”
Click here to learn more about Day Group and other ways Harbour Hospice can support patients and their carers and whānau.
