788 strangers ensure Helen has a bumper 100th birthday
A CENTENARIAN separated from her family because of Covid was astonished after 788 birthday cards dropped through her letter box.
After a Facebook plea by Helen Maxwell-Lefroy’s carer went viral, her 100th birthday was greeted with messages from around the world.
Helen’s care home received cards from the Queen and well-wishers from as far as Canada, Abu Dhabi and Australia.
The bumper postbag was the brainchild of Laura Sheldrake, who knew Helen would have no family visits on her birthday due to lockdown restrictions.
Laura, 33, said Helen could believe she was so popular.
The companionship leader at St Catherine’s View care home in Winchester, Hants, added: “She just kept saying, ‘They can’t all be for me’.
“She was overwhelmed, especially by the cards from schoolchildren as they had drawn them for her.
“She absolutely loved looking through all the cards.”
Laura said Helen, who has dementia, was at first shocked to see the number 100 on the cards and remarked: “I thought I was 50.”
But she went through every one, reading some herself and having others read out loud to her.
The care home marked the milestone with a Victorian-style tea party. not
Helen is a distant relative of Pride and Prejudice author Jane Austen and spent much of her life writing about and giving lectures on the novelist.
She was part of the Jane Austen Society and helped others produce books about the writer.
Helen’s niece Caroline Mackenzie, who lives in France, said: “She is an important person for us, her nieces and nephews and their children.
“Her bookshelves were always full of cards and photos and she would share snippets of information about our lives, weaving our stories in with those of other Lefroys, connecting us with our past and the future.”