VETERAN bus traveller Hilda Evans of Shipton Bellinger celebrated her 101st birthday on Monday with a trip to the pub with Wilts & Dorset.

Mrs Evans, who lives in Parkhouse Road, uses the company's buses to travel into Salisbury twice a week to do her shopping and have a game of bingo.

On Monday, she was whisked off to her local, the Boot Inn, by Wilts & Dorset operations manager Paul Hartigan and Clare Reed, personal assistant to the district manager.

They had brought a bus from Salisbury especially for the trip.

They presented their oldest customer with a huge bouquet of flowers, a bottle of whisky - her favourite tipple - and a pass entitling her to free travel with the company for the rest of her life.

Mrs Evans and her 87-year-old brother Stan Plank are the only surviving members of a family of 12.

They were joined at the pub for a celebratory lunch by Mr Plank's wife Beryl and Mrs Evans's next-door neighbours, John and Emily Maginn.

"I have had so many visitors and lots of presents and cards," said Mrs Evans, who was born in Tidworth and moved to Shipton Bellinger as a girl.

She said she had been travelling by bus since 1905. "I reckon I must have bought the company by now with all the fares I have paid," she joked.