REFUSING to give in to stress and not letting things get to her may have helped Kathleen Crozier get to the ripe old age of 100 - but her life has certainly not been without stress.
Just months after getting married in 1940, Kathleen’s husband Jack was called up to fight in the Second World War.
He saw active duty in North Africa, and says she will never forget the day she received a telegram telling her that Jack was ‘missing presumed dead’.
She went six months not knowing whether her husband was dead or alive, until she eventually received another telegram informing her he had in fact been captured and was being held prisoner in Africa.
‘It was awful, the war years really weren’t nice at all,” said Kathleen, of Park View, Dodworth, who turned 100 on Saturday.
“But you just get on with it, don’t you?”
Scarborough-born Kathleen had plenty to keep her busy, as the manager of a grocery store in Sunderland where she had lived since she was a child.
It was a job she did through all the pressures of rationing. “I suppose I was lucky being the manager of a shop, as I usually managed to get hold of what I needed.”
Thankfully Jack did make it home safe from the war in 1945. They had a daughter, Dorothy Whitmey, and there are three granddaughters and five great-grandchildren.
Kathleen, a widow for almost 40 years, moved to Dodworth from Sunderland 15 years ago to be closer to Dorothy, and with her help and that of carers, she still lives happily in her own home.
“I don’t drink much, but I do like the odd brandy,” she said. “And I enjoy watching sport whenever I can.”
