Brenda turns 100 – in the home she was born in

Brenda Carrott celebrated her 100th birthday with 100 friends at a party in the village where she has lived all her life in the home in which she was born.

Brenda, of Roman Road, Moulton Chapel, still gets out and about often and has a vast network of friends and family.

For her, the secret to long life is to “eat well and not worry”.
Brenda only gave up riding her bicycle aged 90, when she also retired from playing organ at the Methodist Church at Moulton Chapel, which she had done every Sunday since she was 15. She was also a Sunday school teacher there for many years.

Brenda’s mother Betsey raised her single-handedly after her father Thomas was killed in World War One when she was just 13 months old.

She said: “I had a lovely mum. She had the chance to remarry but didn’t because she was concerned whether they would be nice to me.”

Brenda went to the village school until she was 14. After a couple of years working on the land she took up a dressmaking apprenticeship at Beryl’s in Spalding.
She worked in Spalding for the following 20 years and, having never learned to drive, cycled to work every day, whatever the weather.

She married George, of Weston Hills, in 1940. He served in the Army for six years and Brenda took in a teenage evacuee, Vera, who became like a sister. George died in 1976, aged 61.

Mr and Mrs Carrott had one son, Peter, who turned 70 two days before Brenda’s milestone birthday last Friday.
Peter developed a wanderlust which Brenda herself never felt and after working as a gardener – including at Ayscoughfee Gardens, Spalding – he left to travel the world. He met wife Claudia in America and settled there.

However, he returns to see his mother often. He came back for the party at The Jolly Farmer last week and, this summer, the entire family visited, including his daughters Natalie and Leanna and Brenda’s great-grandchildren Jackson and Josie.

When she was a little younger, Brenda went to visit the family in America a number of times – and loved the experience of flying.

She continues to keep herself busy knitting squares for blankets to send to overseas appeals and goes out to eat often – including monthly meals at Broad Street Methodist Church in Spalding.
She said: “I’m very lucky. I’ve got good health.”