Former cafe owner Elizabeth Cunningham has celebrated her 90th birthday.
Elizabeth will be known to many in Edinburgh from her days as owner of The Canasta in Bonnington Road and the Concorde Cafe on Great Junction Street, which she ran with her late husband Bert until 1983.
She was born Elizabeth Heggie Paterson on Au
gust 27, 1918 in Wilkie Place, Leith.
She attended North Fort Street Primary and Bonnington Road secondary.
She left school at 15 to take up employment at a rope factory in Restalrig and later took a job at Duncan's Chocolate Factory in Powderhall. Elizabeth remembers that the conveyer belt in the chocolate factory was so high she had to stand on a box.
As she approached her late teens she took a job as a machinist with whisky firm Vat 69 and in 1936 she met timber merchant Bert Cunningham in the Eldorado ballroom in Leith.
They were married on September 30, 1938.
At the time, Bert was a volunteer in the Territorial Army and Elizabeth also helped out with meals at the East Claremont Street barracks after they were married.
However, Bert was called up to the Royal Tank Corps at the outbreak of the Second World War and sent abroad. Unbeknown to both of them, Elizabeth was pregnant with their first child.
Bert would not see his daughter, also called Elizabeth, for five years, after he was captured in St Valery, France, and spent the duration of the war in a PoW camp in Poland.
Elizabeth fought on at home with the help of her family, and in 1945 Bert was liberated and sent home to his family.
Their second son, Gordon, was born on July 15, 1946, and two more children, Margaret and Ian, followed.
When the children left home, the couple bought their first home in Great Junction Street, and took out a lease on their first cafe, The Canasta. The cafe was popular with locals but the owner decided to pull the lease and the couple were forced to move.
Undeterred, they opened The Concorde Cafe, and remained there until Bert's retirement in 1983. He passed away three years later.
Elizabeth has continued to thrive with the support of her growing family.
Eldest daughter Liz said: "Mum has achieved a great many things in her long life. Namely her four children, six grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren. We would all like her to know that we are so proud of her and we all love her dearly, and we hope that she goes on to receive her telegram from The Queen in ten years' time."
The full article contains 446 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
