DR Margaret Winn Guthrie has only a few secrets to living a long life — that is to make friends, do exercise and keep yourself company even at an old age.
Dr Margaret, 92, is the only child of the late Dr David Hoodless. Dr Hoodless — whom Hoodless House at Brown St, Suva which belongs to medical students of the Fiji National University College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences is named after — contributed immensely to the development of health education in the South Pacific. She still loves to travel to Fiji and give back to the community where she had spent a lot of her young days.
She recently visited Fiji with her eldest daughter to hand over to the National Archives of Fiji a revised edition of Misi Utu, a book she had written about the life of her father at the then Central Medical School and was first published in 1979.
Though age is catching up the gerontologist specialist, which involves the study of old age, still has very good memories of Fiji and one of those memories was her primary school days spent at Girls Grammar School which was located at Suva’s Selbourne St before moving to New Zealand for her secondary studies.
“I have very happy memories of Fiji, one in particular that I will never forget was every day after school, we would go to the swimming pool,” she shared.
“I’m really pleased to be here today handing these collections to the archives, this is where they belong.
“They will be here and it will be easy to get them even if my family or any other members of the public need them.
“A lot of these letters were written to my dad by graduates of Central Medical School and they were kept safely at home in New Zealand but I am so proud they are now back with the national archives where they rightfully belong.”
She also gave a copy of the book about her life she had written to the national archives titled Different Stars for Different Times: Memoirs of a Woman Doctor.
Dr Margaret has three children and six grandchildren and last visited Fiji in 1992.
She returned to New Zealand last week after visiting the national archives and was a guest speaker at the FNU.
