Centenarian near Banbury celebrates her 100th birthday with friends and family

Patricia Mary Garratt, who is known as Paddy, celebrated her birthday with a buffet lunch at the Rose and Crown in Charlton with 30 of her close friends and relatives.

Originally born in Forest Gate, London, and later moving to Wanstead, Paddy, who now lives in a bungalow in King’s Sutton, has always described herself as an ‘Essex girl’.

As a teenager during the outbreak of World War II, Paddy witnessed the Blitz and knew pilots involved in the Battle of Britain. She joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a nurse later in the war at Chisledon Camp near Swindon.

It was during this period that she met her husband, Lee, who had returned from serving in North Africa and Italy. They married in 1947 and spent their honeymoon snowed-in at Buxton during one of the worst winters on record.

Due to Lee’s work with horses after the war, the couple moved home 16 times, including Epsom, Surrey to Crickhowell, Wales, Bathgate, Scotland, and Wrangle, Lincolnshire, before retiring in King’s Sutton in 1986.

Lee died in 1997, but Paddy is surrounded by her son Max and his two granddaughters and three great-grandchildren, who live nearby, and good friends and neighbours who often visit her.

Max said: "She still lives very independently in a bungalow in a housing association complex for over-50s and has a love of dogs, particularly Airedale Terriers, who she will talk to at any opportunity."