I feel good, says centenarian hairdresser

Born on January 15, 1916, in the same year as the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising, Miss McCann from Glenavy said she believed the secret to a long life was “plenty of good food and not exciting myself too much”.

And when asked if she had married, she answered, “not yet”.

Miss McCann, who sill lives at home, said she started her working life with the “Ministry of Finance in Belfast” but that “heavy travelling on foot, bicycle and getting the bus to Stormont was too much for me”.

“I took pleurisy at that time and the illness was a finish to it,” she added.

“I spent a year in bed with that and had to try to eat all the good food I could. I stayed at home here in Glenavy after that and started hairdressing. At the time the home perms had just come out and I started doing them for people I knew. Then word about what I was doing got out, I suppose, and other people wanted me to do it for them.

“People were even coming out of Lisburn for me to do their hair, probably because I took my time and did it properly.

“I was in my late 20s when I started hairdressing and I did it for years and years, but I haven’t done it for some time.”

Putting her long years down to a healthy lifestyle, Miss McCann said: “I kept walking and talking and I feel good. I never in my life thought I would be 100, but here I am and I feel good.”

Meanwhile, fellow centenarian Irene Tennent also celebrated her birthday in recent days at Gillaroo Lodge Nursing Home in Larne.

Among those to wish her well was Mayor of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council Councillor Billy Ashe.