ONE of the region’s oldest people has celebrated her 105th birthday.

Lillian Yarrow, who was born in Pennsylvania, USA, on October 1, 1909, marked her 105th birthday with a party at her care home, St Aidan’s Lodge, in Framwellgate Moor, Durham, today (Wednesday, October 1).

Mrs Yarrow moved to England with her mother and sister in 1915, settling in Sacriston, County Durham.

She was married to Nicholas Yarrow and had two daughters and a son, though the son died while he was very young.

Mrs Yarrow went on to become a grandmother and great-grandmother.

Mrs Yarrow’s father John Charles Coan and his brother George died in a major mining disaster in Canada while she was still a baby.

The UK’s oldest surviving resident is Ethel Lang, of Barnsley, who is 114 years old.