Family wish gran happy hundredth through window

Birthday tears as loved ones stuck outside

The family of a 100-year-old woman in lockdown were forced to celebrate the grandmother’s milestone birthday by waving and blowing kisses at her through a window. Former Simon Langton Girls pupil Dorothy Andrews’ was confined to the inside of the Laleham care home in Central Parade, Herne Bay, as she marked turning three figures on Saturday.

The centenarian, who was born in Canterbury, spent a couple of hours sat next to the dining room window communicating with a handful of loved ones who arrived to wish her a happy birthday. Daughter Lita Mills, 62, said: “I went to see her at the window first thing in the morning and she had a few tears as she realised we couldn’t go in. “Four of us stood outside the window that afternoon and watched her open her card from the Queen and our presents. We made a big thing of it.

“We relayed messages to her through the carer who talked to her on our behalf, waved to her and blew her kisses – that’s all we could do.”

A party with relatives and friends organised for Dorothy also had to be postponed following the outbreak of coronavirus.

But staff at the home, where she has lived for three years, made a “lovely birthday cake and sang happy birthday”. “The carers made a big of fuss of her – they made it special for her,” Lita said. Dorothy spent her formative years in Canterbury, where she was known as “Little Nobby”. After finishing school, she completed a shorthand typist course and went on to work in an accountant’s office. During the Second World War, she stayed in Canterbury to work in the city’s Home Guard Office and met her future husband, Charles Andrews.

As a result of the post-war housing shortage, the couple waited five years before marrying at St Dunstan’s Church in November 1950. Dorothy worked as a secretary at St Thomas’ Roman Catholic School, before retiring and moving to Beltinge in 1985.

Dorothy Andrews with her birthday cards