FIVE generations of the same family celebrated Christmas with the news that there will be an additional member of their clan next year.

Sabrina Bell, 19, of Ferryhill, is expecting her second baby in July, a sister for eight-month-old Emily.

The rest of the family, including grandma Odette Thorpe-Willet, 36, great-grandma Jennifer Crawford, 61, and great-great-grandma Edith Eastwood, 93, are delighted.

Odette said: "We are very pleased. We are a very close family - especially the women! And there are not many families who have five generations and we all get on so well.

"It's nice for the younger ones that there are all these generations around them and that they are there for the children.

Edith was brought up in Halifax, West Yorkshire, where she gave birth to her daughter, Jennifer.

They then moved to Brotton, east Cleveland, when Jennifer's father got a job in the village.

When Jennifer married, she moved to Scotland and came back to Redcar when Odette was a small child.

Odette is not ruling out the possibility of her grandmother, Edith, being around for a sixth generation of the clan.

"She is really fit and healthy and she has only been in hospital once. I think we must all have got the longevity gene from her.