Eat your greens to match Doris’ 100th
A CROOK woman who turns 100 on Monday says the key to a long life is to eat your vegetables.
Doris Mary Storey still lives on her own at Wheatbottom and will celebrate her centenary with her two children, six grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren as well as cousins and other relatives with a party tomorrow, June 20, at Grasmere Grove Community Centre.
Mrs Storey was born in Crook and lived on the now extinct Whitfield Street until her mother died from kidney disease when she was nine-year-old. She then lived with her aunts, one of whom was married to the owner of a haulage company that used horses and carts to carry freight from the railway to the shops and warehouses. She spent a large art of her life on Rosemount Terrace near the old railway station.
Mrs Storey said: “There’s none of my old friends left now, I’m the only one. I have never smoked or drunk and I always eat my vegetables which is why I think I’ve lived so long. My eyes aren’t as good as they were but I still watch TV. I especially like the Politics Show and even got a birthday card from the One Show presenters.’
When she was 19 she married a miner Jo Storey who died when she was 55. The couple had a son Billy, 75, and daughter Julie Heslop, 65, who married local bar owner Lotty who died last year, and started Lotty’s Bar at the foot of Hope Street.
Julie said: “Mum’s incredible because she still lives on her own and is actually very healthy. She certainly doesn’t look 100 and I know she has never stayed more than a day in hospital. I think she deserves a bit of fuss because she has lived in Crook all her life and always been a good resident.”
Mrs Storey, who spent a few years working at Tom Smith Bakehouse to pay for her two children to go to school, said Crook is very different now to when she was a girl. She said: “It hasn’t improved any. One of the saddest things was when we lost the railway station because I always used the train to get out of Crook.
I get very bad travel sickness in cars and buses so I relied on the train a lot.
“The other difference is with the police. You used to see them out and about on the beat but now they just whizz past in their cars. I’ve always kept quiet though, I’ve thought about complaining about things lots of times but in the end I never did.”