A LOVE of sport and being active is the secret to a long and healthy life, according to an Oxford woman who turned 100 yesterday.

Vera Brown, from Risinghurst, celebrated the milestone with friends – and described it as "an honour".

Having partied at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Old Abingdon Road, she is looking forward to celebrating again with Headington Quarry's OAP group on Thursday.

She said: "It just creeps up on you. I suppose getting to 100 is an achievement. What I'm very grateful for is my health; I still get out and about."

The former Dorset House School of Occupational Therapy welfare officer was born in Divinity Road, East Oxford – at the same time as the Battle of the Somme raged, in France.

The Knights House resident added: "I had a very happy time growing up. We did a lot of walking back then because there weren't any cars; we didn't know what a car was.

"There were no radios or television either.

"I remember the 20s being very austere. My father owned his own tailor's business before the war, but, after the Somme, he was called up and was caught up in that.

"Fortunately he came back after serving on the Belgian and French border, but he got trench fever which ruined his heath and he came back to nothing."

Mrs Brown, an only child, recalled one of her first holidays to Weymouth with her father, Ernest Rowson and mother Elenor, a dress maker.

She was a pupil at Cowley St John School, then went to Central Girl's School.

She said her favourite subject was PE and had never wanted to go on to college.

She met her husband, Percival Brown, in her early 20s while working in a shop in High Street.

She worked in a stationary shop, next to the Mitre Hotel before they married in 1945.

During the Second World War, Mr Brown served in the RAF while Mrs Brown joined the Civil Nursing Reserve and worked at what was then the newly built Churchill Hospital in Headington.

Of the war, she said: "We did not know really whether we would survive or not.

"Churchill was the big name then and, from my point of view, we looked to him to bring us through it.

"I suppose we thought we would be the losers, but it was pretty hard going."

After the war, the couple moved to Bedford where Mr Brown was a civil servant. He died aged just 55 in 1966.

Mrs Brown said her husband's death was a shock, and that after he passed away, she moved back to Oxford to work at Dorset House School, among other jobs before she retired, aged 65, in 1981.

She said: "It was a very happy marriage. We had a tandem bike and we went all over.

"But I had to work, and so I did up until my retirement – then me and a friend went touring all over the country.

"I always loved sport, I played tennis and hockey, which was good.

"I have to accept getting older, you can't do anything about it. It's an honour receiving a letter from the Queen."