'Good living' helps Lily celebrate 103rd birthday

REACHING the age of 103 is a real milestone but for Lilias Hamilton, one of the city's oldest residents, the occasion was a quiet affair spent with her daughter.

Born in 1908 in Slateford to a sheet metal worker father, Lily was the second eldest of five children.

One of her earliest memories was as a young girl, standing on a platform at a Gorgie train station with her sister as they waved off soldiers who were going off to fight in the First World War.

After finishing school, she worked packaging chemicals at a company on Leith Walk.

She met her husband and best friend Samuel, known as Sam, through one of his sisters who told her: "I have a lovely brother so I'm taking you home to tea to meet him."

The couple married in 1937.

A heart murmur saved Sam, who worked in printing, from being sent to war, although he was tasked with keeping watch for fires that had been started when bombs were dropped from overhead.

During the war, the couple kept hens in the vast garden of their Marionville Crescent home.

Mrs Hamilton's daughter, Lilian, said her mother was very devoted to her late father, who lived with the family in his later years.

She said: "He was always pottering about in the garden. It was so large that I think the builders got it wrong and they were given too much space."

Music and dancing were two of Mrs Hamilton's passions in her younger years, when she also enjoyed going to the theatre and variety shows.

Although her eyesight and movement are very limited, she still enjoys visits from her family at Porthaven Residential Care Home, where she has been for the past 14 years.

Daughter Lilian said: "She adores her grandchildren - my son, Scott, and daughter, Lynsey. She is sad that with her blindness she can no longer see Scott's beautiful little girls, Honor, seven, and Hope, four. However, as she always notes, she can certainly hear them as they are very chatty.

"She said that she never knows quite what she's done to live this long, but it must have been all the good living.

"She never smoked or drank and always ate good, plain food. She never used soap on her face because she said it dried her skin too much."

Lilian said the birthday celebrations were a fairly low-key affair, with the most difficult part being deciding what presents to give. She said: "I've given her a bunch of flowers - roses and carnations because she likes them - biscuits, chocolate and bubble bath. The only thing she did ask me for was a couple of new underskirts."

Mrs Hamilton's 103-year birthday was marked last Friday and celebrations were topped off with a special cake for the Porthaven residents.