JEAN Birtles, nee Bannister, was born in July 1920 - and she has just celebrated her 100th birthday.

She got a card from the Queen and had a lovely enjoyable time with her family, and some had travelled from France to be with her on her special day.

Now resident at the Brendoncare Home in Froxfield, she is originally from Hornchurch in Essex, later moving to Romford with her parents where she started a kennels and dog breeding business.

She spent the war years in the Land Army on a dairy farm in West Hanningfield in Essex, and met her husband-to-be Tom after the war when he came to buy a dog from her.

They married in June 1949 when they moved to Kent. She bred goats and provided the locals with milk and cheese. In the late fifties, when her husband started an advertising business Jean turned her hand to making country style teas in the garden - baking the bread and making the jam.

On retiring, they moved to a small farm in Lenham, Kent, where she continued with the goats.

When Tom died she volunteered at the local charity shop, and also took up learning the computer to keep in touch with her seven grand children and six great grand children who still call her Granny Goats.