A WINSLEY resident who was born on November 21, 1917 when the First World War was still raging across Europe is celebrating her 100th birthday with close family and her many friends.

Mina Dudley (nee Watson) was the guest of honour at a party on Saturday at the Cumberwell Park Golf Club attended by 30 family members and close friends.

On display was a cake baked specially for the occasion and a 100th birthday greetings card from the Queen, which arrived on Friday.

On her birthday on Tuesday, she will be staging an ‘open house’ for villagers at the Winsley Social Club from 2pm to 4.30pm, with donations instead of presents going to Dorothy House Hospice.

Mina, who has lived her whole life in Conkwell and Winsley, said: “I have had a wonderful life. I have been very lucky. I have got a lot to be thankful for.”

Mina was born in Conkwell to Wilhelmina and Richard Watson, who was a carpenter. He was ordered over to Norfolk with the British army for a short time before coming back to Conkwell.

She had a sister, Ruby, born in 1919, and a brother Richard, born in 1929. Her parents ran the tea garden in Conkwell for many years before Mina moved to Winsley.

“My earliest memories are of growing up with my sister and younger brother. Richard was everything. To have a brother was wonderful”

Mina started work at the glove factory in Holt straight from school at the age of 14, making sheepskin gloves and coats for 7 shillings and 6 pence a week.

“I used to cycle there and back on my bike. I travelled six and a half miles each day,” said Mina.

When the Second World War began in 1939, the factory began making gloves and sheepskin jackets for the Royal Air Force pilots, as well as gas masks.

Mina married her husband, John Dudley, in June 1949, four years after war ended. The couple had no children. “I would have liked children, but sadly it never happened,” Mina said.

When the glove factory closed, Mina went to work in service at Conkwell Grange for Lord and Lady Millbourn.

“I stayed there until Lady Millbourn died, and then I went to work for Chris Patten, the former MP for Bath, who lived at Conkwell. I used to babysit his children.”

In 1976, at the age of 59, she started work for Airsprung, the Trowbridge bed maker, before retiring at the aged of 60. She then worked in service again until the age of 80.

Mina used to love dancing and caravanning with her husband, brother and sister, and still enjoys gardening. She also sews blankets knitted by other members of Winsley Women’s Institute for poor people overseas.

These days, she loves eating out with the WI Winer’s and Diner’s Club, once a month, and still goes to church once a week.

Her advice for a good and successful life is to “work hard”, “give more than you get back”, and “never go to bed on a cross word”.

Mina’s only close relative is her niece, Pauline, who is Ruby’s daughter, and her husband Nigel Amos, who recently moved to Exmouth in Devon, and their two sons, John and Simon, and their families.

John Amos is a British Airways captain who lives at Ramsbury near Marlborough. Simon Amos is a software engineer who lives near Reading.

John and his wife Ruth have three children: Jack, 20, Rosie, 18, and George, 15; while Simon and his wife Erika have two sons: Peter, 3, and nine week old Robert.

Pauline said: “Mina has a lovely personality. I’ve never heard her say a bad word about anyone. She loves babies and is a very good listener. Everybody loves her.

“She has always been like a second mum to me. She absolutely adores my two boys and the grandchildren.”

Mina has lived on her own in Winsley since her husband died in 1990. She learned to drive when she was 60 and drove herself up to the age of 90. She has outlived both her sister and brother.

So far, her health has been good, apart from a touch of arthritis in her knees and shoulders. Pauline added: “She is on the ball. She loves watching BBC Question Time and keeping up with the news.

“She does not live in the past. Although she has memories, she lives for the present.”