Kathleen celebrates 100 wonderful years in Hyde

Hyde resident Kathleen Grove recently celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by her loved ones.

Kathleen grew up in the town, describing it as a ‘busy, thriving town’.

After leaving school at 14, she got a job straight away working 48 hours a week for £2. She later worked on munitions making bombs throughout the war.

The mum-of-three said: “I liked the life where we were all poor and we all looked after one another.

“Everybody wants things now, people want cars - whereas we were content. We were all in the same boat.

“One key would fit every door in the street so you could go to bed and leave your door open, but that felt safe back then.

“On a Sunday, we used to go up Hyde Lane and we’d call it the prom, because all the girls walked up one side and all the boys walked down another side. Then the war came so while all the men were away, you still went but you danced with a girl instead.”

She said she had no ‘secret’ to longevity, but shared that she has never smoked or drunk and goes to church every Sunday, which she enjoys.

She said: “I’ve lived in Hyde my whole life except for a short period where I moved up to Yorkshire with my husband, but I didn’t like it there, it was too quiet, so I fetched him back here and he was here all the time after that.

“We first met when we were very young. I’d go to him one weekend and he’d come to me the next. We were married 69 years when he passed away.”

Kathleen described her dad, Joseph O’Connor, as her ‘hero’.

“He was in the First World War,” she said. “He was shot off his horse. I never saw him walk, he was paralysed from his head all the way down.

“But he couldn’t get a pension because they couldn’t prove he’d been shot in the war, he was a lovely man. I loved him very much.”

Kathleen is also the adoring grandmother of nine, great-grandmother of ten and great-great-grandmother of four.

She described her party as ‘beautiful’ but added that she had outlived the majority of her friends, so it felt bittersweet that they were unable to be there celebrating with her.