A great-great grandmother who recently celebrated her 100th birthday has revealed her three secrets to a long life – children, marriage and ‘mucking about’.
Dorothy Howes celebrated her centenary with a party and surrounded by her family and loved ones at Hill House Care Home, in Ellington.
She said: “Children have been an important part of my life and I’ve always been very family orientated.
“I also urge everyone to keep mucking about and to be silly. It keeps you happy and young.
“And I also thoroughly recommend marriage.”
Dorothy was born on July 27, 1923.
She had three brothers and eight sisters who were all raised a three-bed cottage on a farm in Stukeley.
One of her most prominent childhood memories is of topping and tailing in their beds to sleep at night.
Dorothy said: “There also wasn’t much money for toys in those days – but I do have happy memories of us siblings playing on the farm together.
“We used an old bicycle wheel once as we couldn’t even afford a hoop and stick. We made our own entertainment.
“We walked four miles to get to school every day. It was my job to carry the lunch bag.”
When Dorothy left school, she worked for the Clayton family in Huntingdon.
At 18, she married Harold ‘Mick’ Allgood and the couple went on to have five children David, Les, Andrew, Terry and Marilyn.
They were all among the well-wishers at the gathering to celebrate Dorothy’s amazing milestone.
After she was widowed, Dorothy went on to marry her second husband Bert Howes who had been her childhood sweetheart.
She currently has 12 grandchildren, 24 great grandchildren and two great great grandchildren.
Another of Dorothy’s key life events involved getting caught up in a break in when she was working as a cleaner.
The burglars tied her up to rob the property.
“It unnerved her for a while, but she soon bounced back,” her daughter Marilyn said.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here