NINETY-FOUR years ago little Eileen (Sister) Talbot was so ill with pneumonia that she was expected to die. Today, she celebrates her 100th birthday in good health, with slow mobility her only impediment.

Blessed with good hearing, twinkling eyes, a sharp mind and ready wit, she is as amazing as she is interesting. Indeed, it takes only the gentlest encouragement to set her off on a never-ending fund of stories and anecdotes, and as the conversation flows one marvels at how very in touch with life she is.

Miss Talbot has, for example, been an avid follower of The Young and the Restless since long before it came to Bermuda. Jeopardy and the weather channel are other favourites. She attends church every Sunday, the senior citizens' club luncheon at St. Paul's church hall every month, and needs no encouragement to go gallivanting.

"I have more fun going out than enough,'' she smiles. "I go all over the place.'' Born on May 31, 1900 as the youngest of eight children to Wentworth and Henrietta Talbot, she spent her early childhood in Tucker's Town -- until the land was acquired and her family, like many others, was thrown off it.

Along with her siblings, she attended Talbot School in Tucker's Town, where she was taught by Eddie Robinson, Louise and Cora Williams, and an American lady whose name has been forgotten, but not the excellence of her instruction.

"I never went to school until I was seven, and all I had was a slate, a stick of pencil, a copy book and a Royal Reader,'' Miss Talbot relates. "My mamma said the American lady was the best teacher there, and when she left mamma sent one of my brothers and me to Cripplegate School, where I was taught, among others, by Annie and Millie Hodgson, aunts of the present Minister of the Environment, Arthur Hodgson.

"We walked to and from school every day, rain blow or shine, and at Cripplegate we had to be there at 9 a.m. sharp. Today, if there was a road to the classroom the kids would drive right in!'' In fact, Miss Talbot did a lot of walking before she acquired a pedal cycle, and has never owned motorised transportation in her life. When general motorisation was mooted after the Second World War, she was firmly against it.

"When they asked me to sign a petition, I told them, `If you're against it, I'm against it, and if you are for it, I'm still against it!' '' Like all children growing up in simpler and more civil times, Miss Talbot remembers with great fondness her life in what was then a very rural Tucker's Town. There were few houses, plenty of lush vegetation, including wild lemons, and also farmland, and with her siblings she spent many happy hours collecting shells off the beach, and playing around the Natural Arches. Today's changes to the landscape, and the "off-limits'' policy surrounding much of its beauty, astonishes and rankles her.

"I wanted to go down to Castle Point recently and I couldn't believe it,'' she exclaims. "They told me, `You can't go down there, it's private property'. But I ask questions, you know. Somebody told me it's a public road and they can't tell people they can't go down it. I told my friend, `You should have driven me over to that security man in the box and let me talk to him'.'' Miss Talbot was recently astonished to discover that she cannot now have easy access to her beloved Natural Arches.

"It's so very different today,'' she laments.

Indeed, the centenarian finds that many things have changed -- and not always for the better. She cites manners, dietary preferences, and attitudes among some of the young as examples of modern-day deficiencies.

"When I came along you couldn't be rude because if you were you'd get a slap from whoever you were rude to, and then they'd tell your mamma,'' she recalls.

"In fact, I didn't tell mamma if I did something wrong because I knew what I would get! In Tucker's Town you had to be polite to everyone.'' Still, Miss Talbot doesn't blame the children and young people today for poor attitudes, but their parents, whom she feels are not setting the proper example or enforcing discipline.

She also has little patience with picky eaters.

"It really irritates me to hear them say, `I don't want it'. In my day, you ate whatever your mamma put on your plate, and if you didn't she'd give it to you at the next meal.'' Asked what advice she might have for today's youngsters, she says: "You can't give them advice because they won't listen.'' Miss Talbot is not, however, a crotchety old lady who is out of touch with the times. Quite the opposite, in fact.

She is a down-to-earth, sensible woman who speaks from the wisdom of a century's experience, and believes in candour.

"It doesn't make any difference to me what people think,'' she admits. "I have to tell them like it is.'' From the time she finished school, Miss Talbot carved out a career "doing maid's work'' mostly for Americans, and always in Tucker's Town. Her clients ranged from heads of state to the rich-but-not-so-famous, all of whom she treated with equanimity -- and truthfulness.

There was, for example, the wealthy but obsessively thrifty woman who not only brought a half-consumed roast turkey to Bermuda with her, but also proposed serving her luncheon guests sardines on toast.

"I said to her, `You think we don't have turkeys down here? Why didn't you leave that behind for your cook?' '' Miss Talbot recalls. "When it came to serving sardines on toast, I paid her no mind and cooked up a nice lunch instead. Later, she came out to the kitchen and said how lovely it was, so I said, `Well, it's better than sardines!' '' Nor was the domestic whiz shy about letting untidy clients know where she stood on strewn clothing.

"I told them wherever they threw their clothes I would clean around them, but I wouldn't hang them up. One young girl -- a real smart thing she was -- said to me, `My clothes are on the floor and you're supposed to pick them up.' I told her, `I don't wear your clothes, and the floor is not the place for them to be'.'' There were no such problems with her most famous guest, however.

"I will tell you something you've never heard on this Island, I bet you,'' she begins. "I was the maid for President Harry Truman, his wife Bess, daughter Margaret and her husband, their two children and the nanny when they stayed at Dover House -- where I worked -- for a whole month.'' Miss Talbot remembers that none of the family would answer the lone phone in the house, perhaps for security reasons; and the President, who was famous for his walks, began each day with a brisk stroll to the Mid Ocean Club to buy the newspaper, accompanied by his security detail.

"After he came back, he'd come into the kitchen and say, `Well, Eileen, I had my men on a route march this morning!' '' The President always had breakfast at 8.30 a.m., and Miss Talbot says he was not only a very friendly man but also good looking, as was his son-in-law.

Margaret, too, was warm and friendly, while Mrs. Truman was reserved.

"You won't find a nicer President than Truman,'' she assures.

Miss Talbot's long career also included stints at other private homes, as well as the Mid Ocean Club, and the Pink Beach Club under Mr. Harold Gibbons.

"I worked for Mr. Gibbons for about eight years,'' she relates. "He ran a first-class business, and had very high class people -- a US state governor, senators, doctors and lawyers among them. You had to be properly dressed, and he gave you the clothes you worked in, including sweaters.'' At the Mid Ocean Club, Miss Talbot and her friend Madge were ground floor maids "where all the monied people stayed''.

"We didn't earn big money, but the guests tipped well, and that's where you got the money,'' she says.

Comparing "then'' and "now,'' the centenarian recalls a childhood where simple pleasures brought great delight, and today's grasping materialism was unimaginable.

Eileen scores unbeaten century! Christmas, for example, was eagerly awaited by children, even though they only received a modest stocking filled perhaps with nuts and an apple.

Punctuality was as important as courtesy, walking great distances was taken for granted, and a limited wardrobe was the norm.

"I walked to school every day, and at Cripplegate we had to be there at 9 a.m. sharp,'' she tells. "We went to Sunday School and church every week. I had one pair of shoes, two dresses, two hair ribbons -- one brown and one navy -- and one hat.'' Food-wise, Miss Talbot (who still has a good appetite) ate all fresh vegetables grown by her father, and at his death, she grew her own. Her mother cooked for her large family in an open fireplace using special, long-handled saucepans, as well as on two table-top oil stoves.

During the Second World War, thanks to her feisty spirit, she successfully negotiated greater rations for herself and her invalid mother, whom she gave up 13 years of her career to care for.

What with walking to work every day from Harris's Bay (Devil's Hole area), and a lifetime of hard work, it is perhaps not surprising that Miss Talbot is in such good shape today. Apart from pneumonia and the mumps in childhood, she has enjoyed good health, and notes that, whereas the late Dr. Brown made house calls at all hours and mixed his own medicines, "today you pay doctors a lot of money to give you a pill!''.

Like all seniors who live to a great age, Miss Talbot notes with sadness that she has outlived all of her old friends, and while she has no plans to turn up her toes any time soon, she long ago bought herself a plot at Marsden Methodist Church, where all of the Talbots have traditionally worshipped for generations.

"I paid five pounds for it,'' she exclaims, "and now I have to pay maintenance!'' Now living with her granddaughter, Mrs. Maxine Hunt, and her husband Quillan, Miss Talbot happily spends her days alone while they are at work.

"I don't mind my own company at all,'' she smiles. "In the daytime I watch television, and at night television watches me!'' She also "visits'' a great deal by telephone.

Asked for the secret of her longevity, she says it comes down to good food and no liquor.

"I tell people I wasn't brought up on corn curls, hot dogs, and chips. I never had all that stuff in my life, and I'm going to tell you, I'm not fussy about hot dogs now.'' As to how she plans to celebrate her birthday today she says: "If it's raining I'll be watching The Young and the Restless, and if it's not raining I'll still be watching it!'' A big party, however, is planned for Saturday.

100 NOT OUT Her life spanned the last Millennium -- and she is still going strong. Eileen Talbot has seen Bermuda change from a place of simplicity and civility to today's more sophisticated society. Not all the changes have been for the better, however. Nancy Acton profiles this remarkable centenarian.