With her family and friends around her Lucy Milk celebrated reaching her century with a party at her home.

There was cake, music and a few glasses of something bubbly as the hard-working mother-of-three enjoyed the festivities at Shipdham Manor Care Home, where she has lived for more than three years.

Mrs Milk said: 'I don't know what it's like to be 100, I will tell you tomorrow.

'I think hard work did the trick. I did work hard.'

Despite reaching three figures Mrs Milk still remembers her first day of school, when she didn't want to leave her mother, and also has fond memories of riding ponies.

She was born as one of six in a farming family with her parents, Herbert and Mabel Eagie, based at Bushy Common, near Dereham.

She went to school at Gressenhall and the girls' school in Dereham before working at the Post Office.

Mrs Milk worked as a Red Cross nurse at Dereham Hospital and Woodbastwick Hall Auxiliary Hospital, which looked after patients from the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital during the Second World War.

She married David in 1942 and after he was demobbed from the RAF they bought a farm at East Tuddenham where they lived for 30 years, although they stopped farming some years earlier. Later they moved to Westfield.

Mrs Milk and her husband, who died in 1983, had three children, John, Jane and Linda, and a grandchild Rebecca.

Mrs Milk's daughter Linda Green said: 'She has always been a hard worker and always been such a great mum. She has always been there for her family.'

As well as caring for her family Mrs Milk has always enjoyed the company of animals and for many years she kept cats and dogs.

Nikki Shaw, manager of Shipdham Manor, said: 'Lucy has been with us for a few years now. She is very family orientated, she loves spending time with her family looking through scrapbooks and reminiscing.

'She gets involved with a lot of activities particularly things like flower arranging or crafts. She has a lot of residents who she has always been friendly with. She has a lot of friends here.'

Do you know someone who is celebrating a special day? Email doug.faulkner@archant.co.uk