When cerebral palsy sufferer Joan Thompson was born, her mum was told she would not survive the first night.

But this week she celebrated her 92nd birthday.

The Chatham-raised pensioner came into the world on June 10, 1927.

Three days earlier, her mother Louisa Moss had fallen down the stairs, which started her contractions.

After 72 hours of labour, the midwife told her: "The baby is dead, do you mind?"

Mrs Moss replied: “Of course I mind, I went through all that for nothing.”

There was a glimmer of life in Joan, however, but the doctor said: "Cover her with a towel, she won't make it through the night".

“But now I’m 92 and I’m still here,” says Joan.

She sits in her motorised wheelchair and spends her days zooming round Friston Care Home, City Way, Rochester.

Her god-daughter Helen Masters believes she is the oldest person with cerebral palsy in the UK.

Her symptoms include not being able to walk, stiff limbs and fidgety or occasionally random, uncontrolled movements. But she has never let it hold her back.

Her best friend Dorothy would carry her to the cinema and park.

Joan, who was given a frame to help her walk at six, said: “I was a terror. I used to drag it down all these stairs and it would go plonk, plonk, plonk, behind me.”

She was sent to school in Sussex during the Second World War.

She added: "It was so strict, but I don’t regret that, they made me who I am today."

"I don't know how he became my husband... he wrote in one letter that he'd take me out when he came home... I said 'no, I'm disabled and I'm in a wheelchair'... he wrote back and said that didn't make any difference" - Joan Thompson

Aged 16, she returned to Chatham and began writing to family friend George Thompson, who was in the army.

Joan said: “I don’t know how he became my husband.

“He wrote in one letter that he’d take me out when he came home. I said 'no, I'm disabled and I'm in a wheelchair'. I had to be honest.

“He wrote back and said that didn’t make any difference.”

The loving couple were inseparable and lived in several homes in the Towns until George’s death in 2002 from heart failure.

Joan is the last survivor of her close family, but sees Helen weekly.

She is the granddaughter of childhood friend Dorothy.

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