Connie was born on Armistice Day

Remembrance Sunday was a time of reflection and celebration for one Whittlesey resident who was born on the day the guns fell silent 100 years ago. Constance ‘Connie’ Hailstone was born on Armistice Day in 1918 and given the middle name Peace on the suggestion of the doctor who delivered her. Connie has now lived at The Hermitage Rest Home for the last seven years since her husband Thomas and daughter Barbara passed away, and staff went out of their way to give the centenarian a birthday to remember, with Connie even trying champagne for the first time in her life.

“They’ve done very well,” said Connie. Connie lived where Perkins Engines is currently based off the Frank Perkins Parkway, and the garden where her cattle trader dad John kept the animals is now the Oxney Road Sainsbury’s. The middle child of five, Connie moved to Newborough then Whittlesey, where she left school at 14.

“I was a happy child. I lived near the Whittlesey Washes and I used to go skating when it froze,” she said.

Connie worked picking in the fields which is how she met her future husband, whom she married aged 23. Thomas’ dad left him land in Stonald Road where the couple continued his celery business. Like so many others , Connie’s family were affected by the First World War, with her mum’s brother dying three days after being sent abroad to serve. Connie was 21 when the Second World War started. She said: “We were on rations - we never got a lot of meat or sweets.

“I was a land worker picking potatoes.” Connie has two great-grandchildren and spent her birthday at The Farmers in Yaxley with grandson Mark. Her nieces also came to visit and there was a special tea party at

The Hermitage. Asked if the current generation appreciate the sacrifices made by their ancestors, Connie replied: “I think they do sometimes. We had school children come here and they were asking questions about the war. They were here for an hour then they sang all the army songs which was nice. “But it’s getting a funny world. In London there’s all this stabbing. We dare not go out at night. When I was a child we could leave our door open. People were different then.

“They ought to have kept National Service up for the young boys.” Connie thinks her long life is due to working outdoors and a very happy marriage.