Taunton birthday girl Freda gets it right at last... but only after Belgium trip (From This is The West Country)
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Taunton birthday girl Freda gets it right at last... but only after Belgium trip
6:30pm Monday 21st January 2013 in News By Nick Wakefield
Freda Winmill, front, with daughter Donna Inns and husband Michael.
A PENSIONER is celebrating a landmark birthday 24 hours earlier than usual this week after she found out she had been marking the wrong day almost all her life.
Freda Winmill, of Larkspur Close, Taunton, was born on January 21, 1943, but due to a mix-up when she was a baby she has always believed her birthday was on January 22.
Now, after a trip to visit family in Belgium uncovered the mistake, Freda is celebrating her 70th birthday on the correct date.
Freda, who was born in Bruges, fled Belgium with her mum after the Nazis invaded the country in the Second World War, and the family came to live in Taunton.
It was then that British authorities mistook the date her birth was registered – January 22, 1943 – for the date on which she was born.
Freda’s mum died when she was just eight, so the mix-up was not rectified until last year when she returned to Bruges to celebrate her golden wedding.
Freda said: “It’s amazing that we’ve been celebrating on the wrong day.
“We got a lot answers out of the trip and it started help me learn about my family.”
