My life in pictures, by Cora Whitten

Since then she has married, had children, survived a serious health scare and faced the heartbreaking loss of her parents, son and husband.

Like so many, the 90-year-old – who still teaches keep fit – has a lifetime of memories, and has now opened her photo album to reflect on nine decades of pictures – and on how life has changed since the roaring twenties.

Cora was born in Tredegar, Wales, in 1924, and was 15 when the Second World War broke out. She moved to Stafford with her mother Gertrude Wakeham younger sister June and cousin Phyllis in 1943 following the tragic death of her father, William, a gas stoker who fell down a lift shaft and died, aged 59.

The family moved to in Derby Street, Stafford to live with her sister Betty, who was then working in a sorting office in Newport Road.

During the Second World War, Cora began work at English Electric in Lichfield Road, which produced electrical products including generators and transformers. She was a pantagraph operator and would draw the instrument dials that tested electrical equipment. She said: "Coming to Stafford and having a job was magic. I was able to earn some money when I never had any before." We worked a lot of overtime."

It was there that she met and fell in love with her late husband George.

"I met my husband in the same department," she said. "He was testing equipment. and I was drawing the dials.

"One day I got a puncture in my bike tyre and was walking to work. He said he would get it repaired and when I asked him how much I owed him, he said if you let me take you to the pictures we'll call it quits.

"We went to the Odeon in Stafford on our first date in 1944."

The couple married at St Thomas' Church in Derby Street, Stafford, a year later in 1945. Cora said: "We were wearing secondhand clothes and we got married on a week's wages.

Cora Witton has lived through so many historic moments and events during her 10 decades and remembers each one of them vividly as if they were yesterday.

When the Second World War broke out she was only 15-years-old. She was playing in the park with other children when the news was announced.

She recalled how dark it was at night during the black outs.

"During the black outs, if there was a tiny chink in the curtains people would be banging on the door," she said. "You weren't allowed the lights to show at all. The cars had covers over the lamps. It was jet black, not a light in sight."

She said during the war, food was scarce and it took a while afterwards for the situation to improve.

She said: "You were lucky to get a good stew or something. My diet was basic but it was good food, well cooked.

"We rarely got fruit. We had eggs and milk and that was generally delivered. Food was rationed and we had to produce coupons. We learned to manage."

When war ended in September 1945, Cora was doing the washing at her mother's house in Derby Street, Stafford.

"I had come home from work and I was doing the washing," she said. "My mother was away at the time but my husband-to-be George was in the house visiting. He was in the other room.

"I heard it announced on the wireless. It was a week or so before we got married. We had the next day off from work. The factory was closed.

"We were so excited to hear war had ended. We couldn't believe it."

For the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in 1953, Cora was at her mother's house watching it on the TV as she did not have her own TV.

She said: "I never had a TV when Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne but I remember watching it on my mother's TV. It was lovely. That was a memorable day.

"We got given our first television in the late 1950s by someone my husband worked with. It was a nine inch black and white TV and I'd put it on sometimes for the children. They'd watch Muffin the Mule or The Flower Pot Men."

When America's President John F Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, Cora recalls how sad she felt.

"I saw it all unfold on the TV," she said. "Everyone was really upset by it all and it's all we talked about in the days that followed."

When Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon in 1969, Cora was at home watching in on the TV again but this time by herself. She recalled: "I was mesmerised by it all. It was a wonderful sight."

In November 1974 when the Birmingham pub bombings occurred, Cora was actually in the Second Cityat a keep fit demonstration - not far from where the explosions that killed 21 people and injured 182 at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town happened.

The 90-year-old said: "I didn't hear the explosions or anything like that. It wasn't until afterwards when we were getting on the coaches that we realised what had happened.

"The driver was distraught and he wanted to get away as soon as possible.

"We got a smattering of information from the radio on the coach. When I got home George was frantic because he was worried I'd been caught up in all the drama and he couldn't get in touch with me.

"He was a Bevin Boy at Littleton pit at the end of the war and was earning £5 a week. I was on £2.50 a week. Those were hard times as far as wages went.

"I bought the dress I got married in from my sister and the flowers were out of my sister's garden. At around about teatime George and I went on a bus to Hednesford to stay with his sister and her husband. We spent a week there with them."

When she was not working in her 20s, Ms Whitten spent her time sewing, knitting and reading.

She was 26 when her son, John, was born and left work to look after him.

She said: "I was a housewife. I used to make the clothes for the children and my own clothes out of next to nothing. It was a very busy life.I'd cook good basic meals. We managed with what we had. We couldn't afford holidays but it didn't matter."

After getting married, Cora and her husband lived with relatives before they got a home of their own in 1955 in Attlee Crescent.

She gave birth to another son, Peter, in 1954, but he sadly died two years later from a liver tumour and the couple adopted an eight-month-old girl, Julie, a year later. "I was still knitting and dress-making in my 30s," she said.

"They were busy days with the housework and I always made sure my husband's meal was on the table when he came home from work.

"George went back to English Electric after the war and worked there 47 years.

"He was earning £90 a week and money was scarce. He used to give me a small amount of his wages and I did everything with it. He loved his hobbies. He played cricket, football and was in an angling club.

"I didn't go out much. I got to know people in the street. We took walks and had picnics."

Ms Whitten went back to work as a dinner lady at Highfields Junior School when she was 41 and later became a cook assistant at the College of Art in Lichfield Road. "The few pence I got was very useful," she said. "On Saturdays and Sundays I used to socialise. George was a guitarist in a band. He used to play at the MRI social club and I love dancing.

"I was also doing a lot for Castle Church. I was a Sunday school superintendent and I'd play the keyboard for the church services. I was loving life."

But in 1968, Ms Whitten was diagnosed with arthritis of the spine and the stomach ulcer she had known about for 19 years perforated a year later.

She said: "I nearly lost my life. I was in hospital for two weeks. When I had an x-ray it hadn't disappeared.

"I had to have it removed in an operation."

After traumatic ordeal and her arthritis, she decided to join a keep fit class and would walk miles to get to classes at Weston Road. A short while later she trained to be a fitness instructor and started an evening keep fit class at Rising Brook Methodist Church in 1975.

Meanwhile, her days were spent as an invoice clerk for FH Burgess, in Stafford, were she was earning £16 a week before being made redundant in 1980 after seven years with the company.

However her fitness classes, involving music and movement, were going from strength to strength and branched out to other community facilities in Stafford.

She said: "I went to the keep fit classes because of my arthritis. The hospital wanted me to wear a surgical bolt and a collar so that it kept my spine supported.

"I said I wouldn't wear it. I decided that wasn't for me. Going to keep fit classes was jolly hard work."

In 1981, she moved the classes to the old leisure centre at Riverside and by the end of the year she had 70 people attending each class.

"I used to use balls and hoops and now we use head scarves to exercise the shoulders. We do circulation movements.

"The classes were originally for over 60s but I dropped the age group to 50 in 1983."

The classes, for the over 50s are still going strong today at Stafford Leisure Centre. I love music and movement. I also do a class in Penkridge and have a 92-year-old woman who goes."

In her 50s, Ms Whitten had to juggle her fitness classes with helping to organise her daughter's wedding at Castle Church in 1975.

She made dresses for the three bridesmaids and said the wedding had cost £25, with a reception held at the Nesbitt Arms in Rising Brook.

"We only had 25 at the wedding," she said. "It was nice. It was a quiet day but it was what we could afford."

Her life was touched by sadness again in 1989, when she lost her husband to ill health in 1989, aged 66. She said that her fitness classes kept her going through the difficult time.

She said: "George retired in 1986 and died in 1989. I took what came. The keep fit was the only outlet I had. My hands were never still. I was either sewing or knitting all the time. I was still making my own clothes.

"I was always independent to a certain degree but George had been there if I needed any help."

Ms Whitten said she was still 'full of life and energy' in her 70s, adding: "I still had the housework and shopping to do.""I put a lot of energy into my classes. I was just making the most of each day.

"I used to organise parties and trips for the class. They are very important to me. I wake up in the morning and I'm making up exercises. We have a lot of fun and it's a reward to me when people like it."

She proved that life was not slowing down at the age of 80, when her family booked her on a surprise hot air balloon flight over Shugborough to celebrate her birthday.

She said: "It was magic. I caught the flight from Shugborough and we landed in a farmers field near Rugeley.

"I had told my granddaughter I had seen a balloon in the sky and said how lovely it was and remembered.

"I was excited about it. I wasn't frightened. I was looking over the edge, seeing all the tiny animals. We were above the clouds for some time."

She enjoyed her 90th birthday last month, receiving dozens of cards from her family and friends and has no plans to slow down.

"I feel very lucky to have what I have. I've made an awful lot of friends over the years. I've known so many people through what I do.

"You take each day as it comes and make the most of it," she said. "I feel good to be alive."