War veteran Norm’s 101 reasons to celebrate

Surrounded by his closest friends and family members, Bunbury resident and World War II veteran Richard Norman Eaton celebrated a special birthday milestone at the weekend ahead of his 101st birthday yesterday.

The Goomalling-born veteran worked on farms before moving to Perth in the 1930s and enlisting to serve for Australia with one of his brothers.

Going out to work at the age of 14, seeing his parents lose their farm during the Great Depression and spending four years in a prison camp, Mr Eaton hasn’t had the easiest of lives.

But the centenarian is not letting the past get in the way of the future.

“I don’t feel 101, that’s for sure,” he laughed.

“A lady in town told me I don’t look a day over 85, so that made me feel quite good.”