Mrs Brittliff from Dora Creek is the ideal hostess on the ivories.

She can play almost any popular song with the aplomb of Winifred Atwell before switching to the haunting tune of Candle In The Wind which she will play with a style and accuracy almost indistinguishable from Elton John.

Mrs Brittliff has the same note-perfect panache with every score in My Fair Lady and dozens of other big screen musicals old and new.

Or for a classical evening, she can just as easily play all the music from several operas or play selected works by Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart or Chopin like a professional concert musician.

Yet Mrs Brittliff is 85 years old and not only does she produce an enormous repertoire without sheet music, she doesn't even lay a finger on the keyboard.

You've guessed it - she plays a foot bellows operated pianola.

Mrs Brittliff is a major collector of pianola rolls, the continuous scrolls of paper perforated with holes to allow pumped air through to tiny mechanisms which operate the keys.

"It was an old pianola which we bought from a house in Gosford for about $400. My husband restored it and we had it tuned," she said.

"Until we got the bellows repaired we used a vacuum cleaner to provide the air and we started collecting the music rolls, mostly from Mastertouch in Petersham where we'd sometimes go to watch the rolls be made.

"You can't beat live music and this is the way to do it even if you can't play a note," she said