Family joinsgrandma to celebrate 100 years

Helen Crouch celebrated her personal milestone in the company of two of her great grandchildren.

She had only met Zara Harrison (8) and Lexi Harrison (5) for the first time a few weeks before the special occasion.

They travelled from their home in Tasmania with their parents on Boxing Day and go back later this month.

Mrs Crouch said: 'My great grandchildren are lovely, though I find it's a lot of excitement for my birthday.'

The girls' father, Jud Harrison, said they and Mrs Crouch regularly wrote to each other.

'She calls them her little princesses,' he revealed.

The girls were among the guests at a birthday party for Mrs Crouch at Benizi Court in Clarence Road. She is the oldest of the complex's 48 residents and has lived there for about six years.

She still goes out in a wheelchair with members of her family and, until a couple of years ago, she was able to go out shopping. Mrs Crouch previously lived at Stanley Court in Middleton for some 20 years after having moved from Waltham Forest in Essex.

She raised her daughters there with her late second husband, who she married in 1937. Before then, she made clothes for posh outfitter Simpsons of Picadilly when she was left with her oldest daughter by the death of her first husband, Frank, just three years after they married in June 1931.

They settled down in Bethnal Green after Mrs Crouch had spent the early years of her life in the Tottenham area of North London where she was born.

Her first jobs on leaving school were making shoes and silk stockings.

She had two brothers and five sisters.

Her current family consists of three daughters, 11 grandchildren and ten great grandchildren.