As Arthur Jones celebrated his 100th birthday at an aged care facility in Perth’s south surrounded by family, friends and his 101-year-old wife, Joyce, he shared his secret to long life.
“A good wife is the main one,” Arthur said with a twinkle in his eyes.
“She’s the one who’s kept everything well, that’s for sure.”
Arthur and Joyce met when he was 17 years old but it was 1942 and the world was at war.
In 1943, an 18-year-old Arthur — who was born and raised in Gingin — joined the RAAF and after some initial training in Melbourne he was sent to Darwin, which had been bombed by the Japanese the year before and was still suffering attacks.
“Darwin was flattened, absolutely flattened at that time,” he said.
“We went through some pretty rough times together.”
Initially he worked on the Catalinas but was soon assigned to the RAAF’s air-sea rescue unit, where he was coxswain on one of three high-speed rescue boats — his the 03-1.
“It was 60-foot long, 14-foot wide. We had a cruising speed of 35 knots, which was fairly fast on the water,” Arthur said.
‘I was told not to talk about war’
But Arthur doesn’t like to go into too much detail about those times, in fact, until recently he hardly spoken about the war at all.
“When we got out of the services, I was told not to talk about war, so I haven’t, I’ve kept it quiet,” he said.
“I’d forgotten about it and it was a bastard of a time anyway.”
His step-daughter Joan Jaques said it took a long time for Arthur to open up.
“When he started talking about it, he told me quietly that he was having nightmares and he wasn’t having a good time of it,” she said.
“And I realised he had PTSD, and so he mentioned it to the doctor and tried to give him some treatment for it and sort things out a bit that way.”
After the war, Arthur went on to live a very full life — having a family, running a business, playing sports and growing his vegetable garden.
He did a course in stone masonry and started a business that runs to this day, Perth Monumental Works, which Ms Jaques now manages.
“Arthur started it from scratch, and now it’s 70 years old next year, and it’s just evolved,” she said.
“It’s the biggest monumental works in the state and the oldest so it’s really quite a legacy for him to leave behind and I’m quite proud to run it, to be honest.”
Reconnecting after half a century
Ms Jaques’s involvement in the business was only possible because her mum, Joyce, and Arthur found each other again.
Having lost contact during the war, in 1997 they reconnected and married in 2000, quickly picking up dancing once more, which they’d enjoyed as teens.
“When they got back together, that was the first thing they did, went off dancing, and they danced two or three times a week,” Ms Jaques said.
“Mum had been a widow for quite a while when Arthur came back on the scene, and it sort of gave her a new lease in life.”
“I enjoyed that time so much,” said Joyce.
“And it stays with you in your memory.”
“The music in dancing is really beautiful,” Arthur responds, before singing to her, which Joyce says he does every day.
Arthur’s son Paul credits his father’s long life to staying active, keeping busy and good genetics, his mother living to 104 and his father to 96.
“There’s got to be a reason to keep living,” he said.
“I retired from work relatively early, and one of his first comments to me was, what are you going to do all day?”
‘No intentions of turning up my toes’
Because Arthur rarely spoke about the war and possibly because of his PTSD he never pursued the medals he earned during his war service.
But after recently becoming more interested in his father’s service in WWII, Paul organised to have his father’s war medals given to him for the first time, on his 100th birthday.
“Last year on Anzac Day, dad wore his father’s medals,” he told those gathered for the celebration.
“Next Anzac Day you’ll be able to wear your own, dad.
“We’re proud of you, dad, happy 100th birthday.”
To which his father replied, “Well, I have no intentions of turning my toes up anytime soon.”
