Edna's sparkling 100th birthday
EDNA Mason has celebrated her 100th birthday at her Paignton care home.
She has lived at Primley House for more than eight years, and she enjoyed champagne and cake with the other residents as well as Torbay Council chairman Cllr Roger Stringer, who dropped in to express his best wishes.
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Edna was also taken out for a meal by her family.
Born Edna Howard Moat in 1913, in Southport, her first memories were of going to London and being shown craters in the road made by German bombers the night before.
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Her family moved to Nottingham in 1924 and Edna obtained an art teacher's degree. Her first post was in Liverpool in 1937. She was evacuated to North Wales at the start of the Second World War.
Edna then taught in Derby and studied for qualifications in needlework and dressmaking before being appointed lecturer at Brighton Teacher Training College.
While there, she joined the Red Cross and also acted as an escort, mainly to dances, for St Dunstan's, the college for blind veterans.
In 1949, Edna was appointed by the colonial service as education officer in the Gold Coast. Her duties were to visit small villages and explain what freedom and an election were, inspect schools, set and mark exam papers and write a needlework syllabus.
In 1952, she met agricultural officer Wilfred Mason and they married in Kumasi, Ashanti. They were stationed in Cape Coast until they left in 1958, when the Gold Coast became Ghana.
After two years in Truro, Edna settled in Paignton. She was captain of Churston Golf Club in 1972. She was also a member of Paignton Photographic Club, and she obtained her ARPS and became president.
Edna still enjoys a game of bridge, but when asked what she had enjoyed doing the most during her 100 years, she replied: "Gardening."
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