A self-proclaimed whist gambler and hard worker is celebrating her 100th birthday today.
Isabella McArtney, known as Bella, celebrated the big day with friends and family alongside a favoured glass of fizz, and admitted she was “amazed she was still alive”.
Hamewith Lodge Care Home also invited a singer in last week to mark the occasion for Mrs McArtney – their oldest resident.
The youngest of six, she grew up in a two-bedroomed house on Seaforth Road in Aberdeen.
Although she enjoyed school, she left at 14 to work in a tin factory to support her family, and described herself as a “working girl and always has been”.
Her first impressions of work were not favourable, however.
She remembered: “The big boss at the factory was a big snob and never spoke to the workers.
“It was a bit rough (the work) and I was a wee little thing. I would come home and have to clean but I became accustomed to it.”
‘She never stopped laughing in her marriage’
Now suffering from dementia, Mrs McArtney does not remember everything, but she is also crystal clear with some memories.
“I was always a bit of a gambler,” she said.
She said she used to enjoy playing a lot of whist and bingo and was very good at bowls even winning a few competitions. She was also an excellent sewer and knitter and even took a joinery course.
In her earlier years, Mrs McArtney enjoyed nights spent dancing and also swimming at Aberdeen’s Beach Baths. It was there she met her husband Jim who was a swimming instructor at the time.
Her daughter Diane Thom said he had seen her mum before and fancied her. When he saw her at the beach again he offered to “teach her a few strokes” and the rest was history.
During the 50 plus years they were married, Mrs Thom said their house had been filled with talk of politics and laughter. “My dad always made her laugh,” she said.
“Mind you, he was amusing and entertaining. She never stopped laughing. I think that said quite a lot.”
‘She did whatever was required to support the family’
Getting married in 1942, they had four children, three boys and Mrs Thom.
Once they were older, Mrs Thom said her mum went back out to work – eventually becoming a secretary after completing a college course.
“As we grew up, she had to go back out to work again to get money because we were a working class family,” Mrs Thom, 70, said.
“She did whatever was required. She did cleaning jobs, she worked as a waitress part time, everything was part time so that she could fit in her duties at home.”
However, the family was rocked when Mrs Thom’s brother Alan died of childhood cancer when he was just nine.
Her oldest brother James – a keen mountaineer and climbing instructor – was then killed in an avalanche on Ben Nevis in 1970. He was 26.
Following her loss, Mrs McArtney threw herself into her work for the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers in an upstairs office while her husband was working for the General and Municipal Boilermakers Union (GMBU) downstairs.
The couple enjoyed a “quality retirement” before Mr McArtney died at the age of 77 from lung cancer.
Losses make milestone birthday even more poignant
Mrs Thom’s younger brother Michael died in 2012 of cancer, aged 54.
She said the losses made her mum’s birthday all the more poignant.
“My mum has lost three sons and I am the only one left in the family,” she said. “She’s had a very, very hard life.
“Which makes it even more remarkable that she’s lived to the age that she’s at.
“Everyone who knows us and knows our history, they all say she is remarkable that she has survived that as a mother who has lost so much.
“She’s made of tough stuff that has enabled her to cope with all of that, as well as live to this age.”
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