Marjorie celebrates a remarkable 100 years with a centenary party
A Chichester resident who fled Turkey during the war of independence in 1922 celebrated her 100th birthday on Saturday.
Marjorie Winn celebrated with friends and family at the party held for her at Augusta Court care home, in Winterbourne Road, where she has lived for three years.
She said: “Let us not talk about me turning 100, think of me still being 21.”
Great-grandmother Marjorie was born in the Turkish port city of Izmir, then known as Smyrna, but escaped with her parents and younger brother in 1922 during the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Her father was a British diplomat and her mother was a French-venetian aristocrat, so Marjorie was brought up speaking English and French.
She spent her childhood in Damascus and studied at the French lycee, before attending St Mary’s Ascot and St James’ secretarial course in London.
She then joined her parents in Salonica, northern Greece, until the Germans invaded in 1941, when they escaped to Athens before sailing to Egypt.
Marjorie had met her future husband Raymond Blackler in Greece and they were married in Cairo in June 1941, where her daughter Valerie was born.
She worked at the British Embassy as the confidential private secretary to the second in command, and typed the letter to King Farouk demanding his abdication.
Unfortunately, the marriage did not last, and Marjorie embarked on a new life in Beirut, working as a bilingual secretary at the UN for The Rehabilitation of the Palestinian Refugees.
It was there she met her second husband, Bill, and they were married in 1952.
Their daughter Judith was born later in England and they moved to Bosham in 1963, but Bill died six years later.
Marjorie worked at the UN in Geneva before moving to Chichester with her mother, after the death of her father, where she has remained ever since.
She is a keen gardener and loves her roses, and she is also known as a fine bridge player, having won several tournaments at home and abroad.
Marjorie has grandchildren and great-grandchildren. six seven