A NEWPORT woman is set to celebrate her 100th birthday next week.

Dorothy May Powell, known as May, was born in Newport on August 9, 1911, the youngest of nine children. The family moved to Trethomas in 1913, where she played in the ladies football team in her teens and during the 1926 general strike, she acted as a look out for her brothers while they got coal from the tips to keep the home fires burning.

She married Brinley Powell, a miner from Trethomas, in 1933, and the couple had four sons, Clifford, John, Norman and Byron. The family moved to Edgeware in 1936, before moving back to Trethomas on the day war was declared in1939. Mrs Powell lived in the same house until she suffered several falls and moved to Danygraig Nursing Home in Newport in March this year.

Her husband died from a coal dust related illness in 1959, aged 52, and Mrs Powell devoted her life to looking after her youngest son, Byron, who suffered from muscular dystrophy, until his death in 2000 aged 52.

Mrs Powell as three grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. Before moving to Danygraig, Mrs Powell enjoyed going to bingo and cooking with the homegrown produce Byron grew on his allotment, as well as baking and making elderberry wine.

Mrs Powell will be celebrating her birthday on Wednesday with her sons, Clifford, 76, and John 73.