Eden resident Joan Whitfield recently celebrated her 100th birthday with a special party.
Rather than presents, Joan requested donations for the children’s hospice charity Jigsaw.
Longevity seems to be a family trait, as Joan’s mother Frances also lived into her second century of life, having been born in 1899 and living until 2003. A life covering three centuries.
Joan was born on 1st May, 1925, one of seven children. Amid the upheaval of a move to Lordmire, near Asby, Joan’s mother gave birth at her parents’ home at Bongate, Appleby. Before the NHS, hospital births were uncommon.
After five years the family moved again to a farm tenancy at Bleatarn. Here, Joan and her siblings would walk to school every day several miles to Warcop and back, whatever the weather.
Joan recalls happy times at Bleatarn, but also testing times for the family when her younger brother died at just over a year. She remembers the positive role played by the school in their lives, and in particular by the vicar of Warcop at the time, Mr Murray. Joan especially enjoyed her, and her sisters’ participation in the Warcop Rushbearing ceremony. At the age of 13 Joan and her family moved again to Roger Head farm on the outskirts of Appleby. As most children left school at 14 Joan attended Appleby School in Station Road for about six months. At Warcop school, children would wear clogs made by a local clog maker. They were practical as he could repair them. But at Appleby school they weren’t permitted. Hence, Joan’s mother had to pawn her husband’s gold watch awarded for service to Breaks Hall Farm, Ormside to pay for their children to have new shoes.
Upon leaving school at 14, Joan was asked to go back to Bleatarn by the Hayton family. She was to look after their young children, while the adults were busy on the farm during haytime. It was a memorable time for Joan because at such a young age she says the children were quite a handful. She recalls listening to Neville Chamberlain’s speech to the nation on the radio, on the morning of 3rd September, 1939, informing the public that we were at war with Germany. She then ran down the fields as they had asked her to confirm with Mr and Mrs Hayton that the war had started.
With the war under way, Joan returned to be with her parents at Appleby, from where she started work at the Express Dairy egg station. She then worked for the Heelis family at The Terrace in Appleby, until at the age of 17 she was enlisted in the Timber Corp, part of the Land Army. She was deployed to Hoff Lunn, where a tree felling and sawmill operation had been set up to provide pit props for the mining industry.
As her time in the timber corps came to a natural end Joan had met her husband to be, Jack Whitefield, who had recently been demobbed after serving in the Royal Artillery for six years. Joan, by this time, had been asked by Mrs Illingworth of Bongate Cross, if she would go to work for the family, which she duly did. The family, who had owned woollen mills in Bradford, had come to Appleby at the start of the war.
Joan married Jack Whitfield in the summer of 1948. As the couple had both done military and wartime service, they qualified quite quickly for a house on the then new development at Scattergate Green. Two children were born to the couple, Patricia and David. Joan went to work later as a midday supervisor at Appleby Grammar School, staying in total for 30 years until she retired in 1995 at the age of 70.
The couple frequently went to local dances and were both members of Appleby Bowling Club. Joan was a poppy collector for the Royal British Legion annual poppy appeal for 60 years.
They also both joined the Evergreen Club on retirement, of which Joan is still an active member at 100.
The secret of reaching her century, Joan says, is probably bestowed on her by her centenarian mother together with help from her family and the smiles she gets from her great-grandsons.
