Dora Salvin has raised a glass to celebrate a landmark birthday.
The Middlesbrough mum-of-two turns 100 today and is marking the occasion with a surprise family get-together.
“It’s lovely,” said Dora. “I didn’t expect any of this.”
Born in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, Dora moved up to Middlesbrough when she was 13.
An only child, her father Jack died when she was six-months-old in a mining accident. He was only 24.
She was brought up by her mum, Lil, and stepfather, Will.
“My step-father was a coal miner and with the strikes, he was out of work,” she said.
“So we moved up to Amber Street in Middlesbrough when he got a job.”
Dora went to a school on Ayresome Street for six months after the move up north. She then went straight into work.
“I had a job at Woolston Bookshop on Wilson Street and then I was asked to work at a tobacconists just down the street,” she said.
“I worked there for three years before moving on to work for United Buses as an enquiry clerk.”
Meanwhile, Dora had met and married her husband Tom.
The pair had met as teenagers at St George’s Church on Linthorpe Road and married in 1939.
After Tom served five years in the Royal Air Force during the war, the couple went on to have two children, David, 68, and Moira, 65.
Tom passed away in 1998 aged 82.
Dora, a grandmother to seven and a great grandmother to 18, now enjoys relaxing at home and watching TV quizzes.
And she insists there is no secret to share for good health.
“I can’t think of anything I have done,” she laughed.
Her daughter, Moira Nunn, added: “It is a massive achievement for mum to turn 100.
“But in our eyes, she hasn’t changed one bit.”
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