CENTENARIAN Marjorie Amison was inspired to share a photograph of Christmas at her old primary school in Skipton after seeing a picture in the Craven Herald of another of the town's primary school's more recent nativity play.

Marjorie, who lived with her family in one of two cottages next to the canal near Belmont Bridge, went to Christchurch Primary School, Craven Street, with her older siblings, Charles Godfrey, and Joyce.

After seeing a picture in the Herald just before Christmas of Parish Church School's this year's nativity plays, she thought readers would like to see Christchurch's traditional nativity play, which she believes was taken in or around 1929.

The young Marjorie, then Marjorie Deacon, is pictured two rows down in the photograph, second from the left, and is proudly wearing angel wings along with several others of her fellow pupils.

Included in the photograph are boy choristers, Joseph and Mary, the baby Jesus, and the Three Kings.

Marjorie, who on January 20 will celebrate her 101st birthday, lived with her brother and sister and parents, George and Elizabeth Deacon in Skipton. Her mother's family, the Varleys, ran the Royal Oak in Skipton, where Marjorie was born, and her father ran a furniture shop on Keighley Road - she doesn't believe it had a name.

When Marjorie was 13 years old, the family moved down south to Abingdon, Oxfordshire, where her father had got a job as an agent for a Liberal candidate who was seeking election.

War broke out and some years later, her father later returned to the Skipton area where he ran the still open Stone House Inn, near Thruscross Reservoir.

Marjorie, whose brother and sister have both since died, remained in Abingdon, where she was married, had four children, and where she still lives today. When she was 100 years old, she received a telegram from King Charles III and is looking forward to another one when she turns 101 later this month.

She says she still misses her home town very much, and has in the past tried, but failed, to track down a picture of the two cottages where she lived with her family next to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

Meanwhile, she says she likes to keep trying to do things and although she can't get about as much as she used to, she had a nice, but quiet Christmas and is looking forward to 2024.