Ref. 27984-10A WOMAN whose life has spanned three centuries celebrates her 104th birthday today. Rose Saunders, who was born in South East London in 1899, lives at the Fairhaven senior citizens' home in Bath Road, Old Town.

She has lived long enough to be a subject of six monarchs and to have been through two world wars.

On her 102nd birthday, she modestly remarked of her age: "It's a big surprise to me, because I never thought I would reach 100, let alone two more years on top of it.

"Apart from that, I have never done anything special."

She celebrated with several friends and one of her few surviving relatives, her sister-in-law, Joan, who lives in Wroughton.

Rose was christened Alice, but has preferred use her middle name since her father told her as a young woman that she was like a little rose as a child.

She never married or had children, devoting herself to her career. For 43 years, she worked in accountancy for Royal London Insurance, in the heart of the City of London.

She admits that a major passion in her life has been travel.

In her younger days, she saw much of this country, along with Belgium, France and Switzerland.

On a more chilling note, she also visited Adolf Hitler's Germany just a year before the outbreak of the Second World War.

She said: "I will always remember those young fellows they were just boys really all dressed up in proper uniforms, marching and doing exercises.

"At the time, I wasn't thinking about it, but I realised afterwards that they were preparing for war."

A look back to 1899

Favourite Christmas gifts were hoops and sticks, or clockwork tin toys for the children of the well-off

Queen Victoria was about to enter the penultimate year of her reign

Britain had begun the war against the white Boer colonists of Southern Africa, which was to last until 1902

In Swindon, the GWR Works was at the height of its production and a copy of the Evening Advertiser cost a penny less than half a penny in decimal currency

In the United States, William McKinley was president, and bicycle shop owners Wilbur and Orville Wright were enduring ridicule over their idea for powered flying machine.