Amy, 100, toasts the good times...

A toast to Amy, 100 yesterday

A LATER life full of adventure has proved the secret to a happy retirement for a 100-year-old woman from Saddleworth.

Amy Barrell, of Dobcross, celebrated her centenary in style yesterday as she looked back on a whirlwind romance at the age of 60.

Amy, of Wool Road, met her future husband, Walter, when she joined the newly-formed Saddleworth Pedestrian Walking Club in 1970.

Little did she know that it would blossom into marriage two years later. She said: “I wondered why he was talking to me, and he was so polite that I agreed to go out with him.

“He took me all over the place, from Italy to Spain to Yugoslavia.

“We used to travel and sleep in the campervan, sometimes in the hills — they were great adventures. He took me to all these places I had never been before. He was the love of my life and we had such happy times together.”

Walter died in 1995.

A former weaver, Amy was one of seven children born to Charles and Ada Kenworthy, and she still remembers the impact on the family the death of her brother caused during the First World War.

Amy was visited by her great nephew and niece from New Zealand as a birthday treat at the Millfield Residential Home in Waterhead yesterday.