At 100, great-great-grandmother Ada Marley is still cooking herself meals and completing her favourite word puzzles.

The Botley resident turned 100 yesterday and said the secret to her long life was keeping healthy and keeping busy.

She said: “I have never smoked and I have never drunk. I have also kept busy – I have always done something. I’ve done lots of things – needlework, knitting, and embroidery.”

She also does a crossword or a codeword every day and claims she has never been beaten by the puzzles in her favourite magazine.

Mrs Marley (nee Wears) has lived independently in Seacourt Road for almost 20 years and celebrated the landmark birthday with about 50 family and friends.

Relatives came from Spain and Newcastle for the party at the Seacourt Hall.

Her granddaughter Lorraine Cavanagh, 59, said: “The family have come from all over to be here.

“She has been really special to us all. She is like a mother to us and she holds all the family together.”

Mrs Marley moved to the sheltered accommodation in 1994 to be close to her daughter Nancy Mitchell, who passed away a year and a half ago.

She was born on January 24, 1912, and had two brothers and has one sister. She had two daughters with her husband Thomas, who died in the 1970s.

She now has four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren.

And she found out on Sunday that she is to have a third great-great-grandchild.

When asked what she was most of proud of, Mrs Marley said: “My children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, and my great-great-grandchildren.”

In the year Mrs Marley was born the Titanic sank and American Albert Berry made the first successful aeroplane parachute jump.