A PENSIONER has reached her 100th birthday despite smoking 20 cigarettes a day for most of her life – while doctors praised her “clear lungs and ringing heart”.
Mary 'Molly' Repper, who beat the addiction at the age of 95, joined family and friends at Weston View Care Home in Moray, Scotland, to celebrate.
Daughter Beatrice and son Jim both visited Keith from London on Wednesday, September 6, with their respective partners for their mother's birthday.
“Sharp witted”, “determined” and “organised” were some of the phrases he used to describe what Molly had been like throughout her long life.
Beatrice said: “Mum was very good with numbers.
“At the checkout, she could add up the numbers in her head faster than the cashier at the cash register — and if she wrote the amount wrong she would definitely know it.”
Jim said: “We were devastated when Mum fell and broke her hip five years ago but she fought through.”
“She had been smoking since her teens, but the doctors treating her said her lungs were clear and her heart was as sound as a bell.”
Molly was born on September 4th 1924 in Peterculter, near Aberdeen.
She first met George, who later became her husband, before the start of World War II.
However, the pair did not come together as a couple until the conflict was over.
George, the son of a policeman, had grown up in London, but in 1934 he went to Aberdeen for a job interview.
Finding his prospective employer's place of business closed for lunch, he decided to take a walk down Union Street, where he met a recruiting sergeant from the Scots Guards, who persuaded him to join the army.
He was a regular army officer, and when war broke out in 1939 he was sent to North Africa.
He was captured by Italian forces during 1942 and interned as a prisoner of war.
However, George managed to escape after Italy switched sides the following year.
He then spent the next six months on the run in Italy, only to be recaptured, this time by the Nazis.
George was sent to a prison camp in Germany, where he was incarcerated until the end of the war.
Molly married George in 1947 and the couple moved to London, where George followed in his father's footsteps and joined the police force.
Meanwhile, she held a number of different jobs, including working as a school bursar and medical secretary.
The couple moved back to the same location in 1973 after George retired from the police force.
By chance, they moved into the former police station in Knock.
George was more than six years older than Molly.
As time went on, her health began to deteriorate, forcing the couple to move to sheltered housing at Taylor Court in Keith in the 1980s.
Here, Molly cared for him until his death in 2002.
Molly has five grandchildren – Michael, Daniel, Louise, Alice and George.
He also has five great-grandchildren – James, Matthew, Elijah, Ari and Dimo-James – some of whom live in Bulgaria.
