A resident of Montecillo Veterans Home and Hospital, Mrs Herriott is determined to attend the home’s 11am service to commemorate Anzac Day — as she has done throughout her long life.
"Oh yes, I will definitely be there — it is very important to me to be at Anzac Day services," she said.
"I have never missed one — apart from the Covid times of the past few years."
In 1939, as a young woman of 17 years, she began to work at Southland Hospital, taking on a supporting role until she turned 18 and could take up her full nursing training on the wards.
This coincided with the outbreak of World War 2, and by mid-1940 about 20,000 New Zealand men had left for overseas service with the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2 NZEF).
They went first to the Middle East, Greece and Britain, and later many also fought in North Africa and Italy.
In the later years of the war, wounded men who had been discharged from the army began to return home to Southland, with many requiring hospital care as they finished recovering from serious injuries.
Despite this, the majority of the young men were "holy terrors", filled with mischief and keen to involve the young nurses in their hi-jinks, Mrs Herriott recalled fondly.
"They used to try and get us to push them up and down the wards in wheelchair races, which was great fun, except we were terrified the matron would catch us," she said.
She also saw some very challenging sights, with some wounds being treated with maggots — an ancient and effective method of debriding dead flesh.
"The ones that were the hardest to nurse were those who had suffered blast injuries [most often lung damage and brain injury], who would have no outward sign of anything wrong, but they couldn’t cope with life."
As the daughter of World War 1 veteran William John Nicholl, who served with the NZ Mounted Rifles Brigade from 1917, was badly wounded, and spent years after the war in a nursing home, she had great sympathy for their plight.
At the end of World War 2, she met her future husband Larnet Sydney Herriott (Syd) — a returned soldier who had served in the Italian campaign as a Sergeant in 2NZEF and had fortunately suffered no serious injuries.
"He was an engineer doing some work at the hospital, and I met him there — he asked me to go dancing."
The couple were married in 1947, when Mrs Herriott was 25, and she gave up working as a nurse, as was the custom at that time.
Mr and Mrs Herriott had six children — three boys and three girls, and lived a long and happy life together in places such as Tuatapere, Mataura, Timaru, Ross (West Coast), Ward near Seddon, and Blenheim.
As the children grew up, Mrs Herriott returned to nursing, and finished her career as the matron of Margaret Wilson Home in Timaru.
After her husband died suddenly about eight years ago, Mrs Herriott moved in to Montecillo, where she passes her days quietly and stays in touch with her children, 11 grandchildren, "countless" great-grandchildren, and four great-great grandchildren.
Mrs Herriott reached her milestone 100th birthday on October 5, last year, and was one of the last in the world to receive a 100th birthday card from the late Queen.
She celebrated her special birthday with several parties with family, friends and fellow Montecillo residents.
A month later, she was delighted to receive another royal birthday card, this time from King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla.
