BORN in 1919 on March 22, Mary Barnes of Heddington, celebrated her 100th birthday with a party at the village hall last Saturday.

With a message from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and one from Government Minister Amber Rudd of the Department of Work and Pensions Mary said she was on top of the world.

"I put my long life down to hard work," she said, "and not smoking or drinking."

Slim, physically fit and still in fine fettle, she said staying active was the key to remaining healthy although she agreed it was partly to do with the family gene pool. Educated at Hilmarton Primary School and the New School in Calne, she left school at the age of 14 and went to work at Harris' factory in Calne.

"I was in the sausage making department," she said, "stuffing the meat into the sausages and working the machines."

After a period she left having met her future husband Reginald while 'walking out' on the Strand in Calne in the 1930s. The couple were married in 1935 but life was to take a sharp turn as war loomed and Reginald joined the Territorials before transferring to the Wiltshire Regiment. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 Mary followed Reginald as he was moved from post to post along the South Coast taking work on farms near the army camps.

Physically fit, brave and a natural leader Reginald's war took him into an elite unit where he served in North Africa and a raid on the U-boat pens in France while Mary returned to Heddington where she would do the shopping in a pony and trap.

After the war the couple ran a timber haulage business with Mary taking to the wheel of one of the lorries. The couple had three children. Audrey before the war with Michael and Richard born in the 1950s.