FAMILY, friends and the mayor of March, Councillor Jan French, turned out at one of the town s care homes on Tuesday to help celebrate a resident s 100th birthday. Mabel Pearson, of the Springfield Care Home in the Avenue, has lived in March her entire li

FAMILY, friends and the mayor of March, Councillor Jan French, turned out at one of the town's care homes on Tuesday to help celebrate a resident's 100th birthday.

Mabel Pearson, of the Springfield Care Home in the Avenue, has lived in March her entire life. She is daughter to Thomas and Kate Dyson and had a brother Herbert, and sister Rose, but they had all died by the time she was 22.

Mrs Pearson was married on Boxing Day 1927 to Stan Pearson and they set up home in Acre Road, now the Leather Shop, before moving to the then newly-built Green Street in 1955. They stayed in Green Street until Mr Pearson's death in 1980.

They had two sons. Eldest son Gordon died in 1989, and Terry lives in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

Mrs Pearson has lived in care homes since 1991, first in a warden-controlled flat at Upwell Park before moving to Springfield in 2004.

Son Terry said: "Mentally she is very strong with a remarkable memory. One of her earliest memories is, at the age of eight, watching troops marching through the town on their way to the Western Front.