Charity, Health & Lifestyle | Posted on June 3rd, 2024 | return to news
WAAF veteran celebrates 101st birthday
Betty, who lives at Talbot View care home, joined the WAAF at the age of 18 and worked at RAF Catterick in North Yorkshire and in Cornwall.
Care home resident Betty, who joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) at the age of 18, has celebrated her 101st birthday.
Betty, who lives at Care South’s Talbot View, and grew up in Winton as one of seven siblings, left school at 14 to work as an apprentice in the haberdashery section of a department store in Bournemouth.
Having joined up, she was sent to RAF Catterick in North Yorkshire and later to Cornwall where she was responsible for monitoring radar signals and tracking ship movements. She found the work interesting and challenging and it enabled her to work with a mix of new people. Betty met and was briefly engaged to an Australian spitfire pilot who tragically died in a storm over Malta and was buried in a military grave there.
After the war, Betty returned to working in the department store in Bournemouth, where she was promoted to manager of the haberdashery department before retiring at 60. Betty never married or had children but was close to her mother and her youngest sister, Eileen, and enjoyed looking after her many nieces and nephews.
Betty continued living in her own home until her late 90s when she moved to Talbot View.
Sebastian Wiencelewski, home manager at Talbot View, said: “It was lovely to help Betty to celebrate her special 101st birthday with her family and the other care home residents. Betty is a joy to care for. She loves chatting to our care home team and is always keen to have a little dance when we have musicians in to perform, which is lovely to see.”
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