‘I should be pushing up daises’, is the comical response 106-year-old Mary Catterall gave after asking her daughter how old she will be.
The resident of Florence Mill Care Home, in Howley, will this month celebrate the grand birthday surrounded by all her friends, family and carers.
Mary was originally born in Widnes on February 27, 1918, one of six, just months after the end of first World War.
She moved to Warrington when she was five years old and attended St Ann’s School in Warrington all they way up to being 14 when she left school and began working for the manager of Woolworths in Stockton Heath.
As well as working she had a passion for singing and sung with a dance band before the war.
“They wanted to go touring with her, but her mum would not let her go,” her daughter Edith Oakes explained.
During the start of the Second World War, Mary took on a job as a munition’s worker at Rubery Owen factory on Victoria Road and it was here, she met her husband-to-be, Richard.
The pair married in 1943 and just after the end of the Second World War, Mary gave birth to her first and only child, Edith.
Now 79 years old, Edith still visits her mum twice a week at the Howley care home, where they look through old pictures and reminisce on the years.
Mary’s family extended over the years, having now three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
For many happy years she lived at Ryfields Village in Orford before moving into her first care home Summerville.
“She was the life and soul of Ryfields at the time,” Edith said.
Having always kept her young-at-heart spirit, Mary went on to challenge herself more than she ever had done when she reached her 81st birthday, going abroad for the very first time with her friend to travel South Africa.
She also joined an adventure activity camp in Devon when she was in her 80s and tried abseiling, the trapeze and horse riding, among many other activities, for the first time in her life.
When covid hit in 2019, Mary contracted the virus twice but managed to battle through it.
One of her carers Jeanette Beardsall spoke of how she lights up the care home with her humour and charm.
“She greets all the carers in the morning with ‘I love you’,” Jeanette said. “She likes a game of draughts and a jigsaw, she cheats at dominoes.
“She has a young soul.”
Still with a glint in her eye, Mary turned to her daughter and asked ‘how old am I now’ to which Edith responded, ‘you are 106 this year’. She returned with a ‘well how old does that make you’ before adding ‘I should be pushing up daisies’.
Mary added: “I am ancient.”
The nursing home will be throwing her a birthday bash on February 27 to mark the phenomenal milestone.
“We are having a party with bucks fizz and entertainment. There will be cakes and family coming. She will be celebrating with a drink,” Jeanette said.
Mary revealed her secret to a long life as simply ‘being happy’.
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