Island Treasure Celebrates 104th Birthday

Today marks a very special occasion on the Isle of Man as everybody’s favourite Grandma celebrates her 104th birthday!

May Corlett, one of the island’s most beloved residents, turns 104 today (Monday, May 18) and honestly… what a life she’s lived.

We caught up with May back in 2022 when she celebrated her 100th birthday, and it quickly became obvious why so many people adore her.

Sharp, funny and full of incredible stories, May has seen more history than most of us could ever imagine.

Born in Burtonwood near Warrington in 1922, May left school at just 14 years old to work as a child-minder at a vicarage before later taking a job at the Admiralty in Warrington at the age of 18.

Her memories from the Second World War sound like something straight out of a film.

She recalled hearing Luftwaffe planes flying overhead while air raid sirens rang out, and watching clouds of smoke and flames rise from the bombing of Liverpool in the distance.

It was during those wartime years that she met her future husband Arthur Corlett after her parents took in lodgers working on the airport at Burtonwood.

Arthur had been employed by the same company that had just completed work on Jurby airfield, and while staying there received his RAF call-up papers.

The couple married in 1942 and later moved to the Isle of Man after the war, beginning their life together in a military Nissen hut at what is now Janet’s Corner in Castletown.

May once joked it was ‘quite a nice one’ because it had previously belonged to an officer.

Together, May and Arthur built a huge family, welcoming five children, Elaine, Lin, Graham, Cathy and David, alongside 10 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

And in a stat that was very ‘Grandma May’, every single great-grandchildren was a girl. That’s until the year Grandma May turned 102, they welcomed a new addition, a great grandson, aptly named Athur!

Arthur Corlett sadly passed away in 1991, but May has remained a hugely loved figure ever since, with many island residents knowing her simply as ‘Grandma May’.

Everyone at Media Isle of Man would like to wish Grandma May a very happy 104th birthday!