Many happy returns to Radhabai Kathane, who has celebrated her 105th birthday – making her one of the few people to have received a birthday cards from both Queen Elizabeth and King Charles!
Mrs Kathane, better known as ‘Ma’ and who lives at Puttenhoe Residential Home, was presented with her card last week by Susan Lousada, Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire, as well as a card from the Lord Lieutenant herself and one from Bav Shah, High Sherriff of Bedfordshire.
And she celebrated the day with a party attended by family and friends, as well as Deputy Mayor of Bedford Borough Jim Weir, and Councillor Robert Rigby.
Although she received a card for her 105th birthday, Mrs Kathane is in fact 106 years old - there was an error in recording her year of birth in September 1918, so she was actually born two months before the end of the First World War.
She was born the youngest of eight children, in a small village in central India near the town of Bhandara, about 70 miles east of Nagpur.
Although the literacy rate was around one in 25,000 for girls when she was growing up, her father decided to send her to school and her education was supported financially by some very kind Scottish missionaries.
For high school education, she had to move to the city of Nagpur. She did not know anyone in there, and there was not even a postal letter service for her to write to her parents, but the missionaries supported her, and found a hostel to live in.
She went on to pass her matriculation exam – the equivalent of modern GCSE in the UK - becoming the first girl from her community in the whole of central India to pass that exam.
Mrs Kathane went on to become a teacher, and she married another teacher in 1944 who became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi in the campaign for Indian independence, serving jail time along with hundreds of others.
Their son, Raj, was born in 1948, and later moved to the UK, eventually settling in Bedford where he worked as a consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry. Mrs Kathane joined him in 1986.
He said; “My mum is a vegetarian, teetotal, and non-smoker. She used to walk several miles every day, whatever the weather. Some days in good summer weather she might walk nearly 10 miles, even at the age of 95, and she was known as the 'walking grandmother of Bedford'.
“She’s very frail now and can't walk out of the house, but mentally she’s still sharp and does word-search puzzles for hours.”
David Yourin, Home Manager at Puttenhoe Residential Home said; “Mrs Kathane has a smile that lights up the room and is very popular with staff and residents.
“It was a pleasure to celebrate her big day with her and her family.”