The Zeppelin airship became an object of hatred during the German strategic bombing campaigns of World War I.

That's because of the civilian casualties they inflicted, as they sneaked through the night sky to drop their deadly payloads on England.

One hundred years young – centenarian Margaret Lambourn.

'The baby killers,” they were called.

But the German raiders missed one mewling newborn in her crib in Yorkshire. And that baby's pudgy little fingers are today, 100 years later, playing a piano at the Greenwood Park retirement village.

Margaret Winifred Lambourn is the first resident of the village to reach the big milestone.

'I didn't want to have a lazy boring life,” says the centenarian.

It certainly didn't start boringly amongst the smoke and shrapnel.

Margaret wanted to go to drama school. Her father steered her towards a University scholarship and a career in nursing.

That's when a bloke called Allen walked into her ward. 'One of my patients told him to have a look at the smashing staff nurse.”

There were more fireworks – of the love, wedding and babies variety.

Born during one conflict and fighting in the next, husband Allen went off to North Africa and Margaret joined the war effort in espionage with the Royal Air Force in Egypt. It would be three years before they caught up again.

'It was challenging, but in wartime, you learn to deal with everything that comes along,” says Margaret.

Like again running the gauntlet of the German war machine – this time voyaging back to England with her children through an Atlantic ocean infested with German submarines.

After the war, the performer in Margaret emerged again. While Allen worked for the Kuwait Oil Company, Margaret acted and played piano and tennis around the Arabian Gulf.

This was certainly not 'a lazy boring life”.

But it was a life that would eventually lead them to Kerikeri, working with the Stone Store Preservation Society and some potent home fruit wine-brewing.

Margaret has been a resident at Tauranga's Greenwood Park for 26 years. Along the way she lost Allen. However, she still has her 98-year-old sister as a neighbour at the village.

Until recently, Margaret was accompanying Greenwood Park's songsters on the piano and visiting resthomes to perform concerts.

She still plays Scrabble every day, and enjoys a good book. There's bowls of course and the social club.

'This is one wonderful woman,” says village manager Todd Jenkins.

'She's switched on, and as fit as a fiddle.” And, of course, she's not lazy or boring.

Margaret turns 100 this Friday. There will be a ‘do' and family will be coming from England, Australia and the South Island. Margaret has another sister there.

She's 90. These girls have good genes.