Party time as Ethel reaches 100
When Ethel Handley was born, George V was King, Herbert Asquith the prime minister and the ship RMS Lusitania was just weeks away from being sunk by a German U-boat, killing 1,198 people.
However, the Smethwick woman is still going strong and has recently celebrated her 100th birthday.
She lived with her parents Martha and George Graham and five siblings in Great Arthur Street, Smethwick, but her father died while serving in the British Army at the Battle of the Somme.
She attended Brasshouse Lane School in Smethwick before going on to work at the Phillips cycle factory and met her future husband Thomas Hadley, who lived in Cross Street, at a friend's party.
The couple married at St Stephen's Church in Smethwick in April 1934, but her husband went on to serve with the army in India during the Second World War where he was responsible for training the Nepalese Gurkhas.
The great grandmother gave birth to her daughter Gillian Tandy, 71, on July 5, 1943 and the couple set up their own green grocers business in Handsworth selling food to the Jamaican community, though they were forced to shut the shop following a spate of burglaries.
However, keen football fan Mrs Handley went on to find work as an usherette at a cinema.
Mrs Tandy said: "There is not a subject my mother is not interested in.
"She has been an unbelievable lady, very strong willed with all the right attitudes to life.
"Her longevity is due to the fact she has always put her family first. Her family have been the main interest in her life and that is why she has always worked and done the best for her family. She is not a quitter, she is the sort of person that if you knock her down she will get straight back up again."
Three years ago, she moved into the Ryland View Nursing Home in Arnhem Way, Tipton.
Her granddaughter is Jayne Curtis, 51, while her great granddaughter is Ria Curtis, aged 16.
