IN facing her 100th birthday next week, Madeleine Thompson, of Cotherstone, has more to remember than most, yet she can clearly recall momentous events that have occurred during her lifetime.

The sinking of the now famous White Star liner, the Titanic, in April 1912, is for most of us a piece of history. But for Mrs Thompson, who was born Madeleine Walford on March 23, 1905, in Liverpool, it is part of her living memory.

"When my son-in-law took me to the city's maritime museum, I said I could remember the Titanic being sunk," she said.

"The people around us looked at me as if I was mad. But I was seven at the time and I remember it vividly because I had been to a birthday party," she added. "When we came out, one of the parents was crying at the news because she had a brother on board. She was very upset."

Although her family moved to Cheshire when she was two, Mrs Thompson remembers the poverty of Liverpool, even though it was an important port in those days.

"We lived on the Wirral and had to pass through the city to visit my grandparents," she said. "There were women selling matches to earn enough for something to eat, and children with no shoes collecting plywood fruit boxes from the market for firewood. I was just a child, but it made a lasting impression on me."

When the First World War began, her father was in the Ministry of Shipping, working in London, leaving her mother with three children to look after. They moved back to Liverpool until the war ended, which made for a better social life, said Mrs Thompson.

She remembers wanting her hair fashioned in the latest "shingle" cut when she was about 16. "It was styled like a bob, but shaved at the back," she said. "My mother accepted it, but my father wasn't keen. He felt a woman's hair was her crowning glory. But I never did grow it long again."

As fashion conscious as any modern girl, she remembers copying Egyptian-style clothing following the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb at Thebes in 1922, which excited world-wide interest.

She became engaged to Kelvin Thompson, also from Liverpool, when she was 20, but the couple were engaged for two years before they wed.

"My father wanted to be sure that he could support a family before he would allow us to marry," she said.

The couple lived on the Wirral, where their first son, Michael, was born, before moving to West Kirby, where daughter Jennifer was born. But when the Second World War was declared, her husband was called up to serve in India and did not return home for 4 years. They later had another son, Jeremy.

She remembers candles and gaslight as the means of power, using a dolly tub for the weekly wash after heating water in a gas boiler, and using flat irons.

The family came to Teesdale after the war, when Mr Thompson's employers, Bibby's Animal Feeds, wanted to open an agency in the North-East.

"His office was in Barnard Castle, but we could have lived anywhere between here and Newcastle and were just lucky that we found Cotherstone," said Mrs Thompson. "I said I liked the look of it, and it was the luckiest thing we ever did."

Mr Thompson, who died 20 years ago, then went into business on his own as a seed merchant.

Although she did not have a career of her own, Mrs Thompson did the things expected of a woman of her generation once her family had grown up, including voluntary work in the dale.

Having learned to drive her father's car at the age of 18 she was to continue until only two months ago, despite never having passed a driving test.

A stalwart member of Cotherstone WI until it folded two years ago, Mrs Thompson was its president for 15 years before being co-opted on to the county one in Durham. She was also a Tidy Village judge.

Mrs Thompson will spend her birthday having a meal with her three children, eight grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, three cousins, and her close friends, before holding open house with a finger buffet at the village hall on the Saturday following