Meet the ladies who have been best pals for 70 YEARS!
TWO best friends who met as children are still as close as ever after more than 70 years of friendship.
Irene Blomeley and Vera Bode were just ten years old when they first became pals in the late 1940s.
They got to know each other when they both attended Longfield School on Mauldeth Road in Heaton Moor.
Now both 81, they have been there for each other ever since – and Vera says they now feel more like sisters.
The Stockport friends still speak every day and regularly meet up for meals out together with their families.
Longfield, which was on the site where Tithe Barn Primary now stands, was an open-air school where children were sent to improve their health.
Vera went there due to chronic bronchitis, and remembers it being much smaller than a typical school.
Vera said: “We were ten, and we just met in the school. There weren’t a lot of us in the school, it wasn’t like a proper school.
“We had a few friends there between us. I used to go and sleep at her house.
“We’ve always been close, we’ve been with one another all our lives”.
As young women, they both lived on Hillgate and would see each other constantly.
After Irene moved to Offerton and Vera to Brinnington, they still made time to visit each other as they raised their young families.
Over the years they continued to socialise together and often all went on holiday together.
And if they weren’t already close enough, the pair formally became family, when Irene’s son Stephen married Vera’s daughter Marie.
Now two of their grandchildren are shared between them.
Vera added: “We’ve got other grandchildren, but two between both of us.
“When she moved to Offerton and I moved to Brinnington, we still kept in touch.
“I used to take my children through the park to the museum on the way to see her. “We’ve been to all the same events together, Christenings, birthdays. We used to go on holiday together with the children. “As you get older, you can’t manage to do those things. I had a fall and couldn’t get the bus, but family still bring her to see me.
“We still bother with each other.” The pair have also supported each other through difficult times, including when they were both widowed at a young age.
Irene went on to marry again, while Vera has lived with her partner for more than 30 years. Vera added: “You support each other when things go wrong and try to give each other advice. “It’s a long time to be friends and family together. We’ve never drifted apart. She’s like a sister to me really”.
We’ve been to all the same events together, Christenings, birthdays. We used to go on holiday together. Vera Bode