Former teacher celebrates her 100th birthday

Those were the words of retired teacher Nilla Ursula Royle after two weeks of celebrating her 100th birthday with family and friends.

The great-great-grandmother was born in Goose Hill in Warmfield on April 27, 1916.

She said: “My father died when I was just over a year old and I grew up among adults.”

After attending Warmfield School and Normanton Girls High School, Mrs Royle studied at teacher training college in Lincoln.

She took up her first teaching job in Sharlston and also taught in Snapethorpe and Flanshaw St Michael’s.

Mrs Royle met her husband Geoff in 1934, whilst on a walk with her cousin.

She said: “We met a group of boys and stopped to chat. My cousin liked one of them in the group and that was how I met Geoff.”

They couple married and had three children - David, Andrea and Gillian.

Mr Royle served with the royal engineers during the Second World War. He then worked as a joiner whilst Mrs Royle juggled her teaching career with raising a family.

She said: “Normally if a woman married, she had to give up teaching, but because it was during the war and the men had gone off to serve, there was a teacher shortage and I was allowed to stay.”

Mrs Royle has had various interests throughout her life including hockey, botany, travel and amateur dramatics.

She celebrated her centenary surrounded by her family, including her five grandchildren, ten grandchildren and great-great grandson at a farm in East Yorkshire.

Daughter Gill Cunliffe said: “Mum likes to know what is going off family wise. She has a very determined character. That’s one thing that has kept her going.”