One of the world’s only families to have SIX living generations gathered together to celebrate the 100th birthday of a great-great-great grandmother from Stonebridge.
Last week, 77 direct living descendents toasted Sylvia Green’s milestone birthday including her one-year-old great-great-great grandson Aidan Crosdale.
Mrs Green, of Knatchbull Road, has 14 grandchildren, 31 great-grandchildren, 27 great-great grandchildren and little Aidan.
Michelle Thomas, 46 (inset picture) one of Mrs Green’s granddaughters, said: “She’s an amazing lady. She’s on top of the world after the party.
“She said she didn’t realise that everybody cared so much for her and it makes her going on to live so worthwhile.”
In the last four years Mrs Green’s health has deteriorated but she is being cared for in her home by her eldest daughter, 78-year-old Erma Helwit, who was born in 1936
Due to a chest infection Mrs Green was unable to attend her birthday party but was able to enjoy it from her bed thanks to a video link to her home.
Ms Thomas said: “She was thinking she was a burden to everybody but now knows we love her dearly.
“She’s good, very witty. Her mind is really sharp, the jokes she comes out with and the stories she tells... she has brilliant one-liners considering her age.”
Mrs Green was born in Jamaica in 1915, three years after her paternal grandfather died with more than 1,500 others on the Titanic’s maiden voyage from England to America. At 18 she married Alan Green and had six children including Manley, the eldest, who was born in 1933.
She moved to England more than 60 years ago, with her husband remaining in Jamaica and often coming over to see his family before he passed away in 2001, aged 92.
Mrs Green worked at the Mount Royal Hotel in Marble Arch, starting as a canteen assistant, then worked her way up to being a chef and until a few years ago she was the main cook at the Beulah Apostolic Church in Church Road, Willesden, where she was a parishioner.
Mrs Thomas added that her grandmother’s secret to old age was her faith: “She has a very strong belief in God and says that’s what keeps her going.”
The family is one of a small number in the world to boast six living generations. The record for the most is seven by a family in the United States in 1989.
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