SALISBURY Mayor Bobbie Chettleburgh joined in the celebrations, as a Stapleford woman celebrated her 100th birthday on Tuesday.

Before leaving the village at the beginning of the year to live at Bemerton Lodge nursing home, Dorothy West had been Stapleford's oldest resident, having lived there for more than 50 years.

Dorothy, known to friends and family as Dolly, was born Dorothy Haines, in Warnford, Hampshire.

One of four children, she spent much of her working life in service.

She was employed as personal maid and companion to a Miss Druit, of Sandleheath, in the New Forest, during the second world war.

Dorothy was married to a widower briefly in the early 1950s but, after the marriage broke up, she went back into service, returning to Wiltshire in 1953 to look after her father, who had cancer.

Dolly nursed him until he was 82 and went on to look after her sick mother, who died just a week before her 100th birthday.

A keen gardener, Dolly spent most of her spare time outdoors.

She was also a talented seamstress, making most of her own soft furnishings.

Despite being a keen Coronation Street fan, she decided to ditch her black-and-white television when she received her free television licence a few years ago, deciding that the programme had become too violent.

Younger brother Donald and sister Kathleen were just two of the many friends and family who gathered at Bemerton Lodge to celebrate Dolly's big day and watch her cut her cake.