Community volunteer Helen Owen was overwhelmed by good wishes at her 90th birthday party.

Miss Owen, who lives in Devizes, has supported the Red Cross for more than 70 years and representatives of many local and national organisations attended the party at the Moonrakers Inn in Nursteed Road.

Town mayor and mayoress, Pete and Sonia Smith, were among the well-wishers. Miss Owen said: “It was a lovely event and there were so many good friends present.”

She joined the Red Cross at school in 1937 and during the war she served with the District Nursing and Midwifery Service in the Fens of her native Lincolnshire. She moved to Wiltshire in 1974 and became a control room assistant with Wiltshire Police, retiring in 1980.

At a Buckingham Palace garden party in 2008 she received an award for 70 years’ service to the Red Cross.