Derbyshire widow, 108, gets birthday to remember after receiving hundreds of cards from strangers

Ada Daniel, who was born on June 1, 1915, was left 'overwhelmed' after well-wishers from across Britain sent hoards of cards to mark her incredible milestone.

Staff at Codnor Park Care Home, in Ripley, put out an appeal on Facebook last week to try to get 108 cards for Ada as she has no surviving family.

But they were stunned when received nearly 300 arrived ahead of her big day. An afternoon tea and balloons were also donated by kindhearted strangers.

Activity coordinator Kelly Goucher, who posted the appeal on Facebook, said: "We asked for 108 because obviously she was 108 but it just went well over what we expected.

"She's still a little overwhelmed to be honest, she's not been able to open them all. It's going to be a full day process to try and open them all.

"We've had schools send us cards from every child, we've had them from Rainbows and Brownies groups and we just opened a card from a school from Dorset."

Ada, who was born in Ambergate, has lived through 23 prime ministers, five monarchs and survived two world wars and two global pandemics.

She married her late husband Percy in 1944 when she was 27 after she waited at home for him when to return while he fought in the war. They never had any children.

Percy died aged 73 and she continued to live alone in their cottage and walked every week into Ripley until she was 97 years of age. She went to Codnor Park residential home after living independently until the age of 103.

Asked what the secret was to a long life, Ada - who is believed to be the 65th oldest person in the UK - said: "Keep busy and be happy."

She celebrated her 105th birthday in lockdown by receiving nearly 200 cards from wellwishers after a similar appeal. But Kelly said that Ada had been 'on countdown' to her birthday since April.

She said: "She's literally been on about her birthday since April and she's been on countdown to the big day. We didn't tell her we had made the appeal and the amount of messages we got was just through the roof. We've also had a lot of donations - so people have given us banners with her picture on and balloons with her name on."

Ada, who worked at Belper Mill for nearly 30 years, didn't have any children as she 'preferred dogs to people.'

Kelly said: "She never had children so she never had a lot of family. She's got a great-nephew that comes to visit her and a great-great-great niece that comes to see her now and again. She's not really got a lot of family.

"She used to have six greyhounds and she preferred dogs to people which is why she didn't have any children - I think that's the same for a lot of people."