text: Whitnash woman celebrates her 100th birthday with her nearest and dearest - Kenilworth Weekly News
  Bertha Scanlon and her family celebrated her 100th birthday with a Sunday dinner at Whitnash Golf Club at the weekend.She was born on January 21 2014, just months before the outbreak of the First World War and weeks before Charlie Chaplain made his film debut.
  Mrs Scanlon was born in Amersham in Buckinghamshire and was one of ten children.She moved to Kenilworth with her family in 1935 and lived there for 50 years.Working as a seamstress initially and then at a Daimler and Spitfire parts factory during the Second World War, Mrs Scanlon later worked as a dinner lady at a reformatory school for girls for ten years.She has lived in Whitnash for 35 years - first in Home Farm Crescent and now with her granddaughter Jo Hawkins, Jo's husband Tony, and her great grandsons Jack and George in Morse Road.
  Mrs Scanlon's only son, Ray, died six years ago.She has said that she owes her long life to hard work and exercise and has never smoked.She said that people should take each day as it comes and not bear malice towards others.Mr Hawkins, who helps care for Mrs Scanlon, said his wife's grandmother still enjoys to be taken out around Whitnash.