Kath, aged 104, beats coronavirus just in time for her birthday
Special celebration held at The Willows Care Home
ASTOUNDING Kathleen Perry has beaten off being struck down with the coronavirus, just in time to celebrate her 104th birthday.
The former Loughborough lady, now a resident at The Willows Care Home, Shepshed, was tested and found to have Covid 19 nearly three weeks ago.
Her son Michael, 76, told the Echo that the virus had made her very drowsy and sleepy for about two days and she’d been in quarantine ever since.
That quarantine officially came to an end the day before her birthday.
Michael, who lives in Llandudno, North Wales, said that when the home contacted the family to say she had contracted the virus, they began to fear the worst, especially as she was so drowsy.
He added that she had also been ill at the beginning of the year, possibly with some form of flu virus.
He said: “She was a lot worse then, than she has been just now. We think it was possibly the flu or something like that. She didn’t come round and we were thinking; ‘it’s the last few days.’
“We sat with her and all of a sudden she opened her eyes and said to me: ‘What you doing here?’ and she sat up and started eating.”
The family have nothing but praise for the care Kath has received at The Willows: “They’ve been absolutely brilliant in the home, they really have,” said Michael.
He added that his mum, whose aunt Annie Adcock was a victim of the Zeppelin bombing raid on Loughborough during the Great War, had always been a resourceful lady.
In the early 1950s she became one of, if not the first, lady taxidrivers in Loughborough where she was very well known.
She worked as a taxi-driver with her late husband Frank for many years as Perry’s Taxis.
“She inspires you.”
YOUNG at heart Kathleen Perry celebrated her 104th birthday last week, the day after she came out of isolation after recovering from the coronavirus.
There was a special celebration at The Willows Care Home, Shepshed, where she resides and her eldest son, the Rev Maurice Perry and his wife Ruth went along, keeping a safe social distance.
The family say they are very grateful for the “dedication, extreme care, and excellent nursing afforded Kathleen by the staff of The Willows over the last three weeks, in particular Ed and Nina who spent their time looking after Kathleen”.
Kathleen (or Kath) was born in Nottingham but raised in the Loughborough area where her family can be traced back for over 300 years.
In 1916, Kathleen was born into a family which had just experienced a family member’s death caused by a bomb dropped from a German Zeppelin into The Rushes at Loughborough. Kathleen’s aunt Annie Adcock, aged 42 years, was the wife of a brush maker and mother of five children, the family living at 13, The Rushes.
Annie was one of 10 killed that night from bombs dropped both on the town centre, the Brush and the Empress Works.
Despite the efforts of the local police inspector to impose a black-out, the Zeppelins having dropped its first batch of incendiaries, went on to drop further devices on Ilkeston in Derbyshire. Blackouts were virtually unknown at that time, the country being in its third year of the Great War.
Kathleen grew up on a farm in Six Hills and then went on to serve as a domestic at Ragdale Hall.
There she spent her early years learning to be a good cook and house-keeper, when a truly lucky, handsome young man named Frank Perry who was serving in the army, met up with her, courted her and later married her.
Two sons, Maurice and Michael, completed the family, being settled in Loughborough.
Kathleen became one of, if not the first, lady taxi-drivers in Loughborough where she was very well known. She worked as a taxi-driver with Frank for many years and he went on to retire, having once worked at both the Brush and the Empress Works in the engineering trade. He passed away in 1993 aged 86 years.
Kathleen frequently recounts her early memories but in January 1916, she was not yet in the world; however she soon learned enough from the tale her mum had told her and she listened to the various ancestry tales her mother had discovered.
In 2006, out of the blue, she received an invitation to attend the commemoration of the 90th anniversary of The Rushes bomb blast in The Rushes. She duly attended a service at the Carillon in 2006 where a plaque still lists Annie Adcock as an unfortunate victim.
Kathleen celebrated her 104 years, having moved into The Willows Care Home at Shepshed. Her health was not at its best having had a number of falls, resulting in two stays at Leicester Royal Infirmary.
Kath continues to astound both family, staff and residents with her long memory and has a long list of visitors. She loves to talk about the ‘olden days’ and avidly looks at the old photographs which appear in The Echo. She looks at the Birth, Marriages & Deaths article ‘in case her name is there’, and can often identify locations featured in the ‘Where was this’ old photographs item.
Her son Maurice is now a Methodist Minister and lives with his wife Ruth near Boston in Lincolnshire.
Michael, a former police cadet in Loughborough, later served in the police in London and Derbyshire and partially retired in 1996 at the rank of Inspector. He has now retired fully and lives with his wife Pauline in Llandudno, North Wales, returning to visit his mum regularly, (but of course cannot at this time due to the coronavirus pandemic.)
Kath, who has 10 grand-children and 16 great grand-children, is looking forward to her visitors returning to have a ‘natter’.