Times News
Great grandmother celebrates 100th birthday
4:34pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012
A great grandmother from Mill Hill, who emigrated to Canada for three weeks aged 90, turned 100 yesterday.
Sadie Haley, who lives in Langstone Way, celebrated the milestone with a tea party and a card from the Queen.
Ms Haley, who was born in the same year as the Titanic sank, has lived in London all her life having been born in Willesden.
She moved to a care home in Barnet ten years ago, where she is the oldest resident, and first centenarian.
At the age of 90 she decided to move to Canada to be closer to her son who lives there, but after three weeks she returned to the UK.
Ms Haley’s step son-in-law, Mr Sansom, said: “She missed her friends in the UK.
“I think it was also a little bit too cold for her liking.”
Ms Haley, who has three children, six grandchildren and five great grandchildren, was taught to drive by her father when she was 14 and continued to drive, without ever having an accident, until she was 95.
Her father ran the family business and was an engineer during the war while her mother did charity work.
Before she married, the fifth of six children, she helped in her family’s dry cleaning business doing the accounts.
She then married Jack Green who was managing director of England’s largest hat business making hats for ladies and gentlemen alike.
During the Second World War she lived in Golders Green and looked after her children, as well as being involved in community work, including entertaining the families of men who were away at war.
Ms Haley said: “I went through quite a few bad times - during the war we suffered some nasty bombings.”
In 1977 she married her second husband, Colin Hayley.
Ms Haley is a long-standing member of the Mill Hill Synagogue and did years of charity work including delivering meals-on-wheels.
She also volunteered with Jewish charities in Barnet where she organised events such as dances and dinners.
Ms Haley said: “I am very lucky to have got to this age, I have always kept very busy.
“When I was at school I loved sports.”
Throughout her life she was sporty having played tennis and done gymnastics while at the County Secondary School, an all-girls private school in Hackney Road.
Ms Haley also sang and wrote poetry as well as playing the piano and doing tapestries.