90 year-old Phyllis is 22!

The calendar skipped past the milestone 90th birthday of Phyllis Morris, who lives at CLS Care Home, Park House in Tyldesley. For Phyllis, who was born on 29 February 1920, her birth date only comes around in each leap year, meaning that at 90 years old, Phyllis has only had 22 real birthdays. Determined not to let such a special occasion pass by, Park House staff arranged a birthday party for Sunday 28 February to celebrate Phyllis’s 90th year.

Phyllis, who grew up and lived in Howe Bridge, Atherton, moved to the CLS residential care home in 2008. Phyllis describes Park House as a “marvellous place” and has lots of friends at the home.

Mother of five, Phyllis has nine grandchildren, nine great grandchildren and one great great grandchild, and so has celebrated many family birthdays over the years. On her last official, ‘22nd’, birthday, Phyllis was delighted when she received a birthday card from Sir Alex Ferguson and the Manchester United football team.

This year, Phyllis celebrates 90 eventful and happy years. She married her husband, Ernest Morris on 4 March 1939, just before WW2 was declared. The couple had five children, all of whom were born between 1940 and 1945. Before her youngest child was born, Phyllis worked at Leigh rugby club, where she worked for five years, while Ernest, worked as a coal miner at Howe Bridge Colliery.

Despite already having a large family, the couple took in six evacuees (brothers and sisters) into their two-bedroom family home on School Street in Howe Bridge, Atherton, during the war. The family’s remarkable story made it into the local ‘rag’, the Atherton, Leigh and Tydesley Journal.