CATHERINE Crate, a lifelong Edinburgh resident, is preparing to celebrate her 100th birthday.
Catherine Crate was born in Leith in 1908 to parents Annie and Watson Bowers.
Annie was a housewife and Watson worked on the docks at Leith.
Catherine attended school in Leith, before taking up a succession of jobs, including spells in the Lei
th ropeworks and a cigarette factory.
She met her first husband, John Stuart, at this time, but the couple divorced after the birth of their second child.
In the early 1930s, she began work as a waitress, using her spare evenings to indulge her love of dancing.
It was while dancing that she met her second husband, John Crate, from Ayrshire.
They had six children together, two boys and four girls.
John, who had served with the Army in India until 1936, spent the Second World War as a ship's gunner in the maritime artillery taking part in Arctic convoys, leaving Catherine to bring the children up for some years herself.
Drawing on his previous military experience, John went to join the TA in 1939, but got more than he bargained for. He was standing at Edinburgh Castle waiting for his medical check when news broke that Hitler's troops had invaded Poland.
He was sent immediately to the barracks at Catterick for training.
"The first thing my mum knew about it was in a letter from him," said son Watson.
On his return from the war, John worked at the rubber mill at Fountainbridge, later becoming nightwatchman at Edinburgh District Council.
Meanwhile, Catherine continued to waitress throughout the war, but gave it up to become a cleaner after 1945 so she could spend more time looking after her burgeoning family in the evenings.
She went to work for Duncan's Chocolate Factory in the late 50s, eventually retiring in 1970.
She stayed in her house in Leith nearly all her life, moving to Camilla House nursing home, Morningside, in 2006.
On August 2, she will celebrate her 100th birthday by receiving a card from the Queen.
But the card will be only one of a number of treats in store for the day, which she will celebrate with a party at Camilla House.
Catherine's family is an impressive five generations strong and she will be joined for the festivities by relatives from every one of them.
They are planning a buffet, including her special birthday cake, followed by 1930s music and dancing, and have invited all of the home's residents to attend.
The full article contains 427 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
