Nancy has laughed her way to 100-years

Nancy Thomas has a flawless porcelain doll complexion that defies her 100 years.

The former Mayoress of Llanelli, and longest serving resident of The Haven Residential Home, High Street, Llanelli, celebrated her 100th birthday there with family and friends and civic dignitaries on Friday, October 30.

Nancy puts her longevity and elegant appearance down to having a laugh and fun every day of her life; not smoking, a sensible diet and a lifetime’s interest in fashions.

Among her many birthday visitors were Llanelli MP Nia Griffith and Carmarthenshire Council executive board member for social care and health Cllr Jane Tremlett.

Ms Griffith said: “We had a good political discussion. What a remarkable woman for her age.”

Cllr Tremlett said: “Nancy is an inspiration to all who meet her.”

Carers at The Haven often have to rescue her visitors because they say ‘Nancy can talk the hind legs off a donkey’.

Haven manager Judith McIlroy said: “Nancy is a font of knowledge of Llanelli past and present; is as sharp as a pin and has been a delight to care for over nine years now.”

Nancy, in her career which spanned half her life, has also been responsible for dressing many of Llanelli’s folk because she was chief fashion buyer for Llanelli’s Co-operative Stores formerly based in Murray Street. She started work in the gent’s outfitters department, retiring at 60 in 1975.

“It was a great job because fashion was my hobby as a child and it became my career,” she said. “I have been to all the top fashion houses in London and enjoyed endless catwalk displays.

“It always gave me a great satisfaction to be out and about seeing people in the fashions I had brought to Llanelli. In church and on special occasions I used to take great delight in counting the number of women’s hats that were mine, if you know what a mean.”

Nancy was first accepted for work as a sales assistant at the former “posh” family run Morris the Realm stores in Stepney Street. But her Mum was so appalled at the half-a- crown weekly wages offered (12.5p in today’s cash) that she said she would pay her the same to run errands.

Nancy was always innovative when at the Co-op. To liven up a furnishing display she borrowed her daughter June’s oversized baby doll to put in a cot and it became a major attraction. It increased the stores footfall attracting families with children from as far away as Aberystwyth and Bridgend.

During the war years Nancy was engaged as a guard and signalwoman by Great Western Railways. She said it was a lot of fun but also, poignantly, brought the horrors of war close to home with London blitz victims being ferried by rail in coffins to be repatriated with their west Wales families.

Adding to the colourful tapestry of this remarkable woman’s life was a stint in public service as Mayoress of Llanelli Borough Council in 1954 when her husband Vincent became Mayor.

“The stories I could tell,” ventured Nancy, wickedly. As if in a tale penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Nancy described how the entire cohort of Llanelli Borough councillors, on an away day, spent a night in a convent.

The wives on the excursion had enjoyed a day’s shopping in the local town while the male councillors had decided to go for a walk on the moors. The fog came down and they got lost. Hoping to trace and re-establish civilisation they followed a low wall which led to a building  and a rather large door. “They knocked seeking help and were welcomed by Mother Superior. We dined out on that for years,” laughed Nancy.

As Nancy says, laughter is a tonic and it is tales like that harvested over an eventful life that has kept her young at heart and spirit including having fellow resident and equally witty best friend and former Home and Colonial worker Betty Davies, latterly of Pottery Street as company at her side.

“They say we are a better act than the Two Ronnies or Morecombe and Wise” said Nancy.