By MARIE LEVY and given her Gran's award.

Byline: MARIE LEVY

[e-mail] A MIDDLESBROUGH grandma has received a medal for living with diabetes for 70 years.

Maureen Fewster, of Pallister Park, is one of just 38 people to be presented with the Diabetes UK award since 2004.

It is believed the 75-year-old has been living with insulin dependent diabetes longer than anyone else in the region and has had more than 24,000 injections in her lifetime.

Maureen was diagnosed with diabetes in 1939 when she was just five.

Her father, Ralph Lloyd, was the head scientist at North Ormesby Hospital and it was through him she was able to learn how to control the illness and give herself injections.

Maureen was widowed when she was just 29 which left her to bring up her daughters, Sheila Moore and Kathleen Crooks, as a single parent with diabetes.

Over the years she has witnessed many advances in treatment and given her family a few scares after collapsing when her blood sugar dropped too low, known as a 'hypo'.

Sheila, 49, of Longlands said: "We have come in and thought she was dead and we have had to break into the house." "Living with diabetes was so different then to how it is now but she never allowed it to hold her back," said Sheila.

"My sister and I both had to learn about the illness from a very early age. How to recognise the signs when she needed sugar and how to bring her round from a hypo. There were no telephones at the time and we relied on help from friends and neighbours." Maureen went straight back to work at the nylon factory on Cargo Fleet Lane when her husband Gerard died and continued there until the 1970s when she got a job as a cleaner at Longlands College.

This ended in 1985 when she was knocked down on the crossing outside and suffered a brain haemorrhage which triggered problems with her eyes, which can occur with diabetics, leaving her partially sighted.

Despite everything, the grandma-of-four has not let her diabetes get in the way of anything over the last seven decades, especially her passion for dancing and holidays.

"Every country I have been in I have been in hospital," said Maureen, who recalls early days of injecting twice a day with glass needles, eating Barley sugars when her sugar was low and not being able to go to children's parties and eat jelly.

She said: "I just persevere on.

You just have to look after yourself, eat properly and drink lots of water." Kathleen said: "We would like to thank all the doctors, nurses, carers and paramedics and friends, family and neighbours that have been involved."