A Newbury Park woman celebrated her 100th birthday yesterday (December 20) with three siblings giving a combined age of 377.
Doris Elsden marked the occasion with sisters Rose Wardrop, 98, and Ivy Tanner, 92, and brother Reg Jessup, 87.
Proudly holding a card sent to her from the Queen, she was joined by family and friends at the Maygreen Manor Hotel in Brentwood, Essex.
Mrs Elsden has lived in Redbridge for 80 years after being born in the Elephant and Castle area - six days after Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole.
The centenarian lived in Hainault before moving to Newbury Park in 1951.
Colin Elsden, her son, said: “She’s still mobile, she’s still climbing up the stairs.
“She’s a keen gardener too.”
She married in 1938 to printer Alfred Elsden who died in 1967. The 100-year-old, whose maiden name was Jessup, also has a daughter, Sandra Farinha, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Her son said: “She worked right through the Blitz as a seamstress, working off of Petticoat Lane. “She saw quite a lot of bombing and sadly saw people killed and she worked all the way through the Second World War.”
After her children had grown up, Mrs Elsden went back to work as a seamstress at the old maternity hospital in Eastern Avenue, Newbury Park.
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