TWO hard-working pensioners have celebrated milestone birthdays in York this weekend.

Great-grandmother Hilda Elsegood, a former student of Postern School in Thornton-le-Clay, has turned 104.

Neville Elsegood, her youngest son, aged 77, said his mother met her two latest great-great-grandchildren on her birthday, after they were born just a few weeks ago.

Friends and five generations of more than 30 grand-children and great-grandchildren visited her throughout the day before Meadowbeck Care Home, Osbaldwick Lane, put on a dinnertime birthday party.

He said his mother, a former cleaner, had worked hard bringing him, his siblings Frank and Irene, up in difficult conditions.

“The secret is to not just lie back and do nothing; the secret for a long life is to work really hard. Nobody worked harder than my mother did looking after us.”

Mrs Elsegood is now hoping to receive a telegram from the Queen for her 105th birthday next year.

Despite being the oldest resident at Meadowbeck, Mrs Elsegood regularly wins bingo and snakes and ladders, makes her own greetings cards and has won a cup for winning a bowling tournament held at the home.

Meanwhile, war veteran Doug Clarke, a well-known former club steward in York, today celebrates his 102nd birthday with a gathering of family and friends, from his three sons and daughter to his two great-grandchildren.

Mr Clarke and his late wife Win, with whom he was married for 78 years, lived on Tudor Road, Acomb and worked as bar stewards for working men’s clubs all over York and continued to be sought-after relief stewards into their 80s.

He started out as a coalman, working for his father in Wisbech, Cambridge before he joined the Army.

He served 12 years in the Royal Army Service Corp, and met Win in 1927, while he was in hospital getting Army vaccinations. He joined the Special Reserves under which he served in World War II.

When he was discharged from the Army, suffering from shell shock after Dunkirk, he moved to York and drove big berthas carrying parts of Halifax Bomber aircraft before becoming a club steward.

June Clarke, his daughter in law, said: “He’s very much a family man and he likes having all his family around him.” He also loved fishing and played bowls into his 90s.