A HOLYBOURNE centenarian celebrated her 100th birthday in fine style.

Nellie French was born in Holybourne on April 14, 1916, and on Thursday last week celebrated her landmark birthday with a surprise party at Green Gables Nursing Home in Grayshott and a family lunch at the village pub.

Before lunch Nellie’s guests, who included her friend Jean, nephew Robert Bottrell and his wife Brenda, his sister Maureen Warner and her husband Clive, and Maureen’s sister Jane Passingham, enjoyed a glass of sherry with her.

Then it was off to the pub with the family where Nellie enjoyed a hearty lunch.

They returned to the nursing home for a party and to watch the birthday girl, surrounded by cards, including one from the Queen, cut her cake.

Nellie only recently moved to Green Gables as for most of her life she lived in Alton.

The daughter of a rail worker, she was one of six sisters and when she was young the family moved to Parkclose Road, Alton, and later, after her parents died, Nellie continued to live in the family home. She worked for 28 years in the Lord Mayor Treloars Laundry and among her duties was delivering the clean laundry to the wards.

Although Nellie remained a spinste,r due to family circumstances, she brought up the daughter of one of her sisters and looked after her until her late teens when she married and moved to Canada.

The two have kept in close touch ever since. All her life Nellie was a keen gardener and although she can no longer look after a garden she has filled her room with flowers and a variety of plants.