WINNIE Ferris celebrated her 101st birthday by enjoying a cream tea with residents and staff at the Rose Cottage Nursing Home in Haydon Wick.

She has been living at the home for the past four years.

Julie Beale, deputy manager at the home, said: "She is lovely, everybody adores her."

Winnie moved to Swindon in 1937 after she married fianc George Ferris. She was widowed in 1979.

They did not have any children but her nephew, who was also called George Ferris, cared for her until four years ago.

Before she was married Winnie worked as a housekeeper for two sisters in Bath and during the war worked in the British Restaurant, which in Maxwell Street, Swindon.

She was also a part-time air raid warden and was the first on the scene helping people in Ferndale Road when a bomb hit it and six houses were destroyed.

Nephew George, 85, said: "She used to don a hat and go around the streets with her whistle when she was an air raid warden.

"She was a real personality, game for anything and quite a laugh. But things are different when you get to 101."