A GREAT grandmother who scared off burglars passed away the day before she was due to celebrate her 108th birthday.
Gladys Hewitt, from Huxley, was lucky to survive the traumatic ordeal last October when she fell by her front gate after confronting burglars who fled empty-handed.
However, Gladys never returned to her house and moved into a care home at Kelsall where she died peacefully on Monday.
Daughter-in-law Adele Hewitt, from Tarporley, said: “She had a telegram from the Queen but she never got to open it. She hadn’t been well and it had been expected. Her mother died on the eve of her 91st birthday. It’s amazing how these things happen.
“My husband Brian said ‘I bet she’ll go the same way as her mother did’. She lasted well after the ordeal she had with the burglars. We didn’t think she would have lasted this long. She was a strong lady.”
Mrs Hewitt, who understands the burglars were never caught, said the trauma of having to move out of her family home had upset Gladys.
“She always used to say she wished she had locked the door and then we would have got them. But she fell in the dark on the front gravel because they had broken the outside light.
“She was happy there because the carers used to go in four times a day and everybody popped in to see her.
“The sun always shone on her birthday but it isn’t today. Maybe it knows.”
Born in Neston in 1904, Gladys moved with her family to Burwardsley where she met husband George.
She went to Worleston Dairy School where she qualified as a cheese maker. The couple moved to Huxley in 1938 and they founded G and GB Hewitt meat wholesalers, a business which is now run by her two grandsons.
Gladys had been active in the community, she played the organ for Hargrave and Huxley village church and sang in the WI choir in Tarporley well into her 90s. For funeral enquiries contact T H Lightfoot funeral directors on 01829-733808
