100 up for war nurse Winnie
A former hospital worker who cared for injured airmen during the Second World War celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by family and friends in the Black Country.
Winnifred Pyle, known as Winnie, also has memories of the financial hardship faced by families in the mid 1920s when the General Strike led to bread queues.
She was born on May 11 1909 in Walsall to parents Ernest and Phoebe Siddons. She had eight siblings and grew up in Weston Street, in Caldmore, where they attended the area's Whitehall School. She said: "I never thought I would live this long. During the war we just got on with it. But I think it is time to move on now from the past now."
Mrs Pyle, of Broad Lane, Bloxwich, worked as a ward auxillary at the former Goscote Hospital for 45 years before her retirement in the 1960s. She started her working life aged 16 at Yarnfield Hospital, in Stone, Staffordshire, before moving to Goscote in her home town. The Goscote Lane hospital, opened in 1930, was created to treat diseases such as diphtheria, typhoid and scarlet fever which were prevalent in early 20th century.
During the war years, injured pilots and crew were treated at Goscote and she helped to look after them as part of her duties. She worked there alongside her sister-in-law Phoebe Siddons who was married to her brother Tom.
Their daughter Ann Fry, now aged 71, and her husband Victor, aged 73, travelled from their home in British Columbia, Canada, to join in the birthday party at Delves Court Nursing Home where Mrs Pyle has lived since last December.
Mrs Pyle's husband George died in 1982. They had no children of their own.
