ONE of the last surviving Aycliffe Angels has described how she was so small when she was born that she was not expected to live.
But Louie Young always joked she had "fooled them" and has just celebrated her 100th birthday.
Members of staff at Appleton Lodge, in Spennymoor, County Durham helped her mark the occasion, along with son Malcolm Young and daughter-in-law Theresa.
Malcolm said: “My mother’s secret to long life is always having a positive attitude. She is allergic to only two things - penicillin and housework.”
“My mother has always been very generous and has helped anybody she could – and always with a good sense of humour.”
Born in Kelloe, near Durham, one of her earliest memories was the 1926 Miners’ Strike when her family got a food parcel from the Lord Mayor of London, which included her very first sweets in a tin.
Louie left school the age of 15 and went to work in boarding house Scarborough. She went home at the outbreak of the Second World War, but was asked to return to Scarbrough to help look after evacuees.
When she turned 18, Louie went to work Royal Ordnance Factory 59 at Aycliffe, where she became one of the celebrated Aycliffe Angels.
They became known as the Aycliffe Angels after a Nazi propaganda broadcast from Lord Haw-Haw threatened that "The little angels of Aycliffe won't get away with it" and promised that the Luftwaffe would bomb them into submission.
Malcolm said: “My mother spent two hours on the bus to the factory. It stopped at all the villages picking up workers. She recalled having to take a brolly in case it rained, because the bus leaked."
Louie was courting Jim Young at the time and kept an embroidered poet card he had sent while serving with the 8th DLI in Egypt.
After war the couple married and moved to Old Kelloe, before later living in Bowburn, where Louie stayed until she moved to Appleton Lodge three years ago.
In her fifties Louie got a temporary job at the Department of National Savings and was told she needed her O Levels to make job as cleric officer permanent – which she died at Durham College.
Louie was joined at her birthday celebrations by Spennymoor Mayor Councillor Dean Raynard, who presented her with a bouquet. Members of Durham Police and County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Team were also in attendance.
Louie has two grandchildren Paul and Anna and four great-grandchildren.
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