Elizabeth set for 100th celebration

Earlsheaton may have changed a lot in the past 100 years but to Elizabeth Hirst it has been the source of a lifetime of happy memories.
Elizabeth Hirst.Elizabeth Hirst.
Elizabeth Hirst.

Mrs Hirst was just six months old when her family moved to the village – and she’s lived there ever since.

She will her 100th birthday on Tuesday with an open house for her many friends at her Town Green home.

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“Earlsheaton has changed dramatically,” she said. “It was a lovely village with shops on each side and trams used to run up from the bottom of Wakefield Road. It’s a lot quieter now.”

Born Elizabeth Hall, her family lived in Westborough before moving to Walker Street in Earlsheaton when she was still a baby.

She studied at the church school in the village before joining the new Victoria School at the age of 12.

“We were one of the first to go,” she said. “They didn’t have enough chairs and we had to sit on the floor.”

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And when she left school, Scarr End Mill in Earlsheaton was the obvious place for her to take up work as a weaver.

Mrs Hirst met her late husband, Ronald, when the two got chatting at Dewsbury’s Playhouse Cinema.

In July 1940 the couple married at Highfield URC in Earlsheaton.

Together they had four children – John and Kathleen, and the late Derek and Colin.

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Mrs Hirst may be a great grandmother these days but she’s as active as ever.

“When the children were small I always had something to do,” she said. “I used to cut my hedge and use the strimmer well into my 80s, and I feel like I’m only 60 in my head!”