Birthday Card Plea Delights 100-Year-Old Jo

More than 250 messages of congratulations greeted a wonderful’ lady on her centenary after her Winchester dementia care home issued an appeal for people to send in birthday cards

Great great grandmother Jo Gough described as ‘full of character’ was astonished with her birthday maildrop at Colten Care s St Catherines View The home’s Companionship Team Leader Laura Sheldrake called for as many cards as possible to be sent in to help Jo celebrate her landmark day As well as local and UK well-wishers, people responded to the Facebook plea from across the world including Thailand Budapest Connecticut in the USA, Moscow, Guernsey and Jersey

Children and staff at Winchester s Harestock Primary School and the team at Happy Day s Childcare in South Wonston were among nearby respondents

In the run-up to Jo’s big day a total of 258 cards were delivered to St Catherines View all carefully stored out of sight ready for the presentation

Laura said “Jo is such a wonderful person and full of character and we wanted to show her how much we all care for her I explained in the appeal that she loves the colour turquoise, the garden and music, and indeed many of the cards reflected those themes I also wanted to get cards from lots of countries as Jo travelled extensively in her younger years “Jo has been with us for three years Because of the pandemic there have been tough periods for her and

“I knew that if she had lots of cards she would love reading them at her own and enjoy the congratulations from strangers In the appeal I said reaching 100 is an achievement in itself and it would mean the world to her, her family and the staff here if we could show her how much she deserves this attention

On the day Jo was over the moon with her birthday cards and could not believe they were all for her She also can’t believe she is 100, and we could not agree more

When asked what her secret of longevity is Jo replied My family they ve always kept me on my toes” She has five children plus grandchildren great grandchildren and great great grandchildren

As well as cards from the birthday appeal, Jo received the traditional royal greeting card reserved for centenarians now sent on behalf of King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla

Laura added: Jo spent a long time just reading the card over and commenting on how lovely it looked with the gold cord running down the middle ”