Romney House Care Home staff and residents celebrated the 100th birthday of Joan Turner yesterday, together with family members and friends.

Mrs Turner, who has been at Romney House, in Trowbridge, since 2008, was joined by her son Peter and his wife Rosemarie, as well as her two grandchildren Rupert and Ollie and niece Jenny, to celebrate the momentous occasion.

She was born in Cornwall on September 24, 1914, as Joan Mewton and had an older brother called Jim. She attended Truro Grammar School before going on to university at Bristol.

Mrs Turner worked for the Admiralty and stayed in lodgings in Bath, until she started work as a milk sampler at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, where she met Phillip Turner.

The couple, who married in Cornwall in 1947, had three children, Peter, Adrian and Vivian and moved to Trowbridge in 1959.

Peter, 61, who lives with his wife at one of his parent’s farms in Bradford on Avon, said: “When mum met my dad she was engaged to an airline pilot, but he soon swept her off her feet.”

Both Adrian and Vivian were born with cystic fibrosis, with Mrs Turner’s only daughter dying aged 14 in 1972 and Adrian dying in 1997, aged 46. Shortly after Vivian’s death, Mrs Turner also lost her husband in 1974.

Peter said: “Mum has a heart of gold and always puts everyone else before herself. I think her secret to reaching 100 is that she is Cornish, as well as being determined and never drinking or smoking.”

As well as receiving her birthday card from the Queen, Mrs Turner and her fellow residents were treated to an afternoon of entertainment from singer Rob Dee.