Hotel to host 100th birthday celebration for King's Lynn's Elaine today
A woman whose Welsh up-bringing gave her a “natural” song in her heart today celebrates her 100th birthday surrounded by her family and friends at an “open-house’ coffee and cake morning.
Elaine Price-Jones, who has sung in a number of choirs over the decades, is s a long-serving member of St Faith’s Anglican and Methodist Church at Gaywood
She is hosting her birthday centenary event at the Knights Hill Hotel and has invited family and friends to “drop in” this morning.
An afternoon tea for invited guests will also be held later today.
Although born in Derby, she spent her formative years in the Welsh capital city of Cardiff.
She sang in a number of choirs, including the Glamorgan Singers and the Cardiff Municipal Choir.
In her later years she was a leading member of St Faith’s Anglican and Methodist Choir.
“I have always loved singing”, she said.
She was a founder volunteer member and long-serving treasurer and driver of the St Faith’s Gaywood Forget-Me-Not Lunch Club for the Over-60s.
The club has been running for more than 50 years but has been suspended during the Covid lockdown.
Elaine, whose executive health services manager husband, Vernon, died in 1990 aged 70, was also actively involved in various Lynn organisations including king’s l ynn Ladies Circle and the King’s Lynn Townswomen’s Guild.
Elaine , who is known for her elegant dress sense, and Vernon were married in 1947 at Roath Park Methodist Church, Cardiff, their marriage spanning 43 years until Vernon’s death.
Their only son, Howard, who contracted Polio as a young child, died at the age of 62 in 2012. He was married to Pat , who continues to be a good and supportive friend to her mother-in-law.
Elaine has a brother, Derek, aged 94. An architect, Derek, designed the Gaywood bungalow where Elaine still lives. Her sister, Beryl, died at the age of 74.
Asked for the secret of her long life , Elaine says she has never joined a gym, never gone out jogging or run anywhere.
“Doing none of these widely-accepted health beneficial pursuits, clearly hasn’t done me any harm”, she said with a twinkle in her eye.
