HAZEL Riordan is a shining example of why we should keep busy and live life to the full.

At 93 years of age, she is among Mt Beauty's oldest residents, but remains active and engaged in our community.

"My daughter Joy once said always keep busy Mum, so heeding her advice I now work in the United Church Op Shop on Mondays, baking my cakes, biscuits, tarts and scones for the market once a month," she explained.

"I get up at 1am on market days to make sure the scones are fresh.

"I want to go to Bali to learn more about wood carving and turning, but that will have to wait because I’m due to have surgery to have my Pacemaker battery replaced."

Hazel (née Meagher) was born in July 1931 during the Great Depression, in a small hospital in Mordiallac, Melbourne.

Her father Jim was a plasterer and craftsman designing ceiling cornices and rose centres, something you don’t see very much these days.

Mother Edith was a stay at home mum - being a farmer's daughter it was not unusual for her to keep house cows, providing the family with milk and butter.

Hazel said Mordiallac was so different back then from today, as there were lots of paddocks and gardens.

"My brother Jim had to come home from school at lunchtime to move and water the cows," she said.

Due to the polio epidemic Hazel did not start school until aged seven.

She left school at age 14 and started a job as a sales assistant in Smorgons butchers on Bridge Road in Richmond.

Hazel met Keith Riordan at a dance where he was a musician, and they married in 1951.

Not long after they moved to Wangaratta where they stayed for five years, then moved to a farm at Mongans Bridge.

They had four children - Colin, Joy, Marie and Judy - with 13 grandchildren, 17 great grandchildren, and so one great, great grandchild, of whom she is very proud because they’ve all done so well.

Teaching herself to drive it became a thing she loved to do.

Until recently Hazel would often make the long drive from Mt Beauty to Brisbane to visit her youngest daughter Judy, staying overnight in Moree.

She would often drive down to Melbourne for the day, meeting family for lunch and afternoon tea, then driving to back home to Mt Beauty.

Hazel was involved with the local Girl Guides, so when moving back to Melbourne in 1975 she worked at the Girl Guides headquarters for 15 years.

Along with three friends Hazel travelled extensively around the UK and Europe in a motor home - that was needed because one of the group was wheelchair bound.

On another trip to the UK she found work with ‘Country Cousins’, an organisation where you became a live in carer for elderly women for a month at a time.

"I met so many interesting people on my travels," Hazel said.

She has been back in Mt Beauty for the last 20 years and remains an active member of the community, and an inspiration to many much younger than her.