CARE workers, friends and schoolchildren held a special party for a former teacher who has celebrated her 100th birthday.

Mary Stead, of Middlesbrough, has no surviving family but staff at The Gables Care Home in Middlesbrough along with Mrs Stead’s friend Kath Learmonth held a party for her.

Mrs Stead, who was a maths teacher at the now demolished St Thomas’s Secondary School in Middlesbrough, was born on September 22, 1916 at the height of the First World War.

After hearing she would be celebrating her birthday without family, pupils from St Thomas More RC Primary School, on Erith Grove, offered to make birthday cards and presented them to Mary on her centenary. The lifelong devout Catholic received a Lourdes medal for 50 years’ service in 2010. Fr Stephen Maurghan from the Sacred Heart Church in Middlesbrough shared a few words. “Mary had a wonderful day,” said home manager Chris Churchill.