--- title: 99-Year-Old Woman Receives 16,000 Birthday Cards From Strangers description: Well-wishers reached out from as far as Singapore, the U.S. and Taiwan. canonical: https://time.com/3902451/winnie-blagden-birthday-cards/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-30T15:07:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:26.393Z og:title: 99-Year-Old Woman Receives 16,000 Birthday Cards From Strangers og:description: Well-wishers reached out from as far as Singapore, the U.S. and Taiwan og:url: https://time.com/3902451/winnie-blagden-birthday-cards/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02c783571685bb92/6988524f35ba6f541cc0d80b/winnie-blagden.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4986 og:image:height: 2805 og:image:alt: WINNIE BLAGDEN CENTENARIAN og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 99-Year-Old Woman Receives 16,000 Birthday Cards From Strangers twitter:description: Well-wishers reached out from as far as Singapore, the U.S. and Taiwan twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02c783571685bb92/6988524f35ba6f541cc0d80b/winnie-blagden.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 99-Year-Old Woman Receives 16,000 Birthday Cards From Strangers > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now [Watch (HLS stream): A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-08-20. A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium._ by [Alex Heigl/People](https://time.com/author/people/) ## Alex Heigl/People Contributor May 30, 2015 3:07 PM UTC  Winnie Blagden, who will become a centenarian at the end of the month, during a surprise party at Sheffield Town Hall, Sheffield, England. Winnie Blagden, who will become a centenarian at the end of the month, during a surprise party at Sheffield Town Hall, Sheffield, England. Lynne Cameron—PA Photos /Landov by [Alex Heigl/People](https://time.com/author/people/) ## Alex Heigl/People Contributor May 30, 2015 3:07 PM UTC Winnie Blagden turns 100 on Sunday. She has no surviving family to help her celebrate the milestone since the death of her husband George. So when [BBC Radio Sheffield](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-32913381) reporter Kat Harbourne heard about Blagden’s situation, she decided to take action. “Sue \[Pinder, one of Blagden’s caretakers\] was worried that, as Winnie has no family, she would not have a very good birthday,” [Harbourne told the U.K. _Telegraph_](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11637590/Woman-receives-16k-birthday-cards-on-her-100th-birthday.html). “We got thinking and decided to put out a small appeal to see if we could get a hundred cards or letters for Winnie to open on her birthday. We’ve been staggered by the response.” The response was in the form of 16,000 cards and over 200 presents and flowers, all via [the Facebook campaign](https://www.facebook.com/bbcsheffield?fref=photo) the radio station set up. Well-wishers reached out from as far as Singapore, the U.S. and Taiwan. During a local reception at Sheffield’s Town Hall (Blagden has lived in the town her whole life), [she said](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-32913381), “Everything has been lovely, I’m not used to it. I don’t know why they’re making all this fuss, but I want to thank everyone, it’s been beautiful.” _This_ [_article_](http://www.people.com/article/99-year-old-woman-receives-16k-birthday-cards) _originally appeared on_ [_People.com_](http://www.people.com) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3902451/winnie-blagden-birthday-cards/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3902451/winnie-blagden-birthday-cards/"},"headline":"99-Year-Old Woman Receives 16,000 Birthday Cards From Strangers","datePublished":"2015-05-30T15:07:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:26.393Z","description":"Well-wishers reached out from as far as Singapore, the U.S. and Taiwan","url":"https://time.com/3902451/winnie-blagden-birthday-cards/","keywords":["Newsfeed","World"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02c783571685bb92/6988524f35ba6f541cc0d80b/winnie-blagden.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Heigl/People"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt02c783571685bb92/6988524f35ba6f541cc0d80b/winnie-blagden.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"WINNIE BLAGDEN CENTENARIAN","caption":"WINNIE BLAGDEN CENTENARIAN","creditText":"Lynne Cameron—PA Photos /Landov","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3902451/winnie-blagden-birthday-cards/","name":"99-Year-Old Woman Receives 16,000 Birthday Cards From Strangers"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now","description":"A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/uJFYIrvP/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-20T13:40:15.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3902451/winnie-blagden-birthday-cards/","duration":"PT3M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3902451/winnie-blagden-birthday-cards/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```