One of Ġużeppa Sant’s very first recollections is of her mother covering the windows of their house with cloths to make sure the light did not catch the attention of enemy eyes.

That was World War I.

Then, in her 20s, she relived those terrifying moments when Malta was bombed during World War II.

“Every night I would head to the Police Depot’s shelter in Fleur de Lys with a pillow and a bed sheet packed neatly in my hands,” she recalls, shaking her head at the dark memory.

“I lived the war in great fear.”

The 105-year-old remembers every detail, from the continuous air raid warnings and the disastrous state of Valletta as Malta was pounded from the air, to the paperwork she needed to enter the shelter and her favourite corner in it.

The serious shrapnel wounds her brother suffered in his face while on duty are still seared in her head.

“I remember once waiting outside the depot and people were saying that a German pilot had crashed in the road leading to Rabat. Soon afterwards we saw people carrying him on a stretcher.”

Once she spent the whole night convinced that a brother of hers had been killed during the bombings that shook the shelter where she was sleeping.

Her brother, a soldier, had spent the night at home in Santa Venera. She ran home following the raid and found a badly battered front door and a nonchalant, uninjured brother indoors.

Ms Sant, born Agius, is the eldest and only surviving sibling of 11. She spent her childhood living near the Lapsi church in St Julian’s but moved to Santa Venera with three of her siblings during the World War II.

At the time she held the role of secretary at Scicluna Bank on Strada Forni (Old Bakery Street) in Valletta but was allowed to work from home during the war. She still travelled once a week to Valletta on foot and to Naxxar by bus, spending the whole trip listening out for any raid warnings.

Ms Sant survived both wars, the start of a new millennium and everything in between.

How did she do it?

“I think it was work. Keeping busy has kept me going all these years,” she says, as she tugs the end of a tablecloth to make sure it is hanging evenly from all sides.

Even now, Ms Sant’s day starts with breakfast at 6am and she makes sure she completes any chores in her room at CareMalta’s Roseville home by the morning.

Today she will be dusting her dresser where she keeps all her photoframes, having already made sure that everything else is in order. She walks with the help of a walking frame, which she calls her car and her man to lean on.

She married widower Maurizio in her 40s, taking in his three sons, and later worked her way into selling toiletries and detergents to small shops, after the Naafi (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) left the island and her late husband became jobless.

Having kept active throughout her life, her advice is “keep yourself busy”.

“Do your best at everything and use your mind in whatever you do. Throughout the years, the family has also kept me looking forward to each new day, especially in recent years.”