2 weeks Ago
Friends and family gathered at a Horwich home yesterday to raise a glass for a very special birthday. Doreen Greenhalgh turns 100 today, Monday, and marked the occasion with a party alongside her three daughters, seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Doreen was born in 1924 before the TV was even invented, making her older than both Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn would be.
According to her daughter, Donna, playing golf and regularly dancing into her 90s have ensured a fit and healthy life. Doreen and her favourite dog, Alfie (Image: NQ) In 2004, the centurion jetted off to the 'sin city' of Las Vegas for her 80th birthday, and she still carried on travelling into her late 80s. This year's affair is somewhat tamer, with a big bash at her daughter's home, followed by a meal at a family favourite chippy, today, on her actual birthday.
Donna, 57, said: "It's lovely to have everybody round and it's a great excuse to see everybody which has been so nice. "We've got a good 20-odd of us so it's a big family." Doreen was born in Bolton but her father was a foreman of one of the region's biggest cotton mills over the road in Wigan.
During the Second World War, she worked at the co-op laundry on Deane Road, before meeting her future husband, Brian Greenhalgh, at a TB sanatorium in 1950. Doreen (far right, upper) with her parents and family (Image: NQ) Donna, a doctor, added: "She met my father because they were both visiting relatives who were poorly with TB, as they didn't have the modern medicines we have nowadays. "She was two years older than dad, so she had herself a bit of a toy boy.
" One of Doreen's favourite memories, according to Donna, was during the 1969 moon landing, when she and the family all "held hands as people just didn't know what was going to happen". Sadly Doreen was widowed in 1987, when Brian died at just 60 years old. Donna said: "She has been so active even in her later years, she rode horses into her 90s, was still driving even at 88, and travelled all over.
Doreen opening her card from the King (Image: NQ) "She never really smoked or drank much." Doreen now lives in a care home in Bolton, a few miles down the road from where she grew up. The jewel in the crown of her big birthday came with a card from the King, which Doreen was delighted with.
"She has always been a big monarchist," Donna explained. Doreen also had an affinity for the late Queen Elizbeth II, who was born two years after the Bolton centenarian..
