Bubbly Alice is 100

HAPPY birthday . . . Mayor Jim McArdle celebrates with Alice Mann

Great-grandmother Alice Mann enjoyed a champagne reception to mark her 100th birthday.

Alice was surrounded by friends and family as well as Oldham Mayor Councillor Jim McArdle and Youth Mayor Mohammed Adil at Laburnum House in Shaw for her centenary party.

An industrious Alice started work at Lily Mill in Shaw aged 14 and carried on working after the birth of her only child, Douglas, in 1932.

Alice married her now late husband Joshua, a cellar boss at Shawside Cotton Mill who also served in the Home Guard during the Second World War, at Shaw Parish Church in December, 1931.

Over the years, Alice’s hobbies included ballroom dancing, crochet, embroidery, flower arranging, reading and puzzles. She also took up crown green bowling and was a regular visitor to Dunwood Park in Shaw. She moved into Laburnum House, where her mother Emma was a resident, in December, 1999 and met up with a number of her childhood friends. Alice’s family now includes son Douglas and his wife Joan, her grandchildren Ian and Gill, six great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandchild due in February.