'Wonderful' woman living in Great Missenden care home celebrates her 100th birthday

Next Wednesday (28 September), Kathleen Ford celebrates reaching a century.

She is described as a wonderful person by her fellow residents in Woodlands Park Care Centre in Great Missenden.

Kathleen has lived at the home since 2016, it looks after people living with dementia.

Staff at the care home are hoping to receive 100 birthday cards to celebrate the special milestone.

Already, guests have started penning their birthday messages for the soon-to-be 100-year-old.

One person wrote to Katleen: “To a wonderful lovely lady hope you have a lovely day.”

A member of the care team told The Bucks Herald her fellow residents are in awe of Kathleen reaching this special marker, despite some of them not being far away themselves being aged as old as 97.

Woodlands Park describes her as a “remarkable woman who we love having here”.

She often knitted squares for countless blankets in aid of charity after her retirement.

One of her crowning achievements was supporting the alliance in the Second World War.

She was tasked with creating parachutes for the Royal Air Force and British Army.

Glenda Brooks, her daughter, says: “She has been a loving and supportive mother.”

Her main hobby is knitting, staff at Woodlands Park report that she is also an enthusiastic singer.

Often, when a local vicar comes round every Tuesday for a singalong session, Kathleen can be found as part of his chorus.

They regularly play one of Kathleen’s favourite songs “White Cliffs of Dover”.

Kathleen, who is often known as Kath by her friends, spent large parts of her life living in Norfolk and spent her early life in Coventry.

She moved over to Great Missenden in 2011, to be closer to her daughter after her husband William Ford’s death in 2011.

She is the youngest of four, and the last of her surviving siblings, her sister Joan passed away when she was 100.

Kathleen is looking forward to being one of the first people in the UK to receive a birthday message from our the UK’s new monarch, King Charles III.