Former South Oxford president and captain Hilda Waller enjoyed many a success on the green – but she has just chalked up her greatest triumph by celebrating her 100th birthday.

Waller, who took up the sport in the 1960s, won numerous competitions at her home club and also enjoyed success at county level, representing Oxfordshire in the England Championships at Royal Leamington Spa.

The sideboard at her Wytham Street home, just around the corner from South Oxford BC, is adorned with trophies - testament to her victories, especially with her good friend, Sue Gunn.

“I played until I was 90 and I played short mat bowls for a couple of years after that,” she said proudly before bemoaning the effects of old age which meant she had to put her woods away.

“They are a very friendly club and really nice people,” she added.

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“Every summer we would go on tours to Torquay and we played in Wales and all over the place.

“Now I watch the bowls. I sit there and wish I was out there. I do miss it.”

Talk of playing against Oxfordshire legend Irene Molyneux lights up Waller’s face.

“We beat her when we played at Abingdon,” she said. “She was the head player really, but it was lovely.”

Waller, who puts her longevity down to “a little drop of red wine every day”, was captain of South Oxford in 1982 and two years later she became president.

However, she never let on what her age was.

Her son, Keith, explained: “She had kept it a secret how old she was, but they had to find out eventually, of course, and when I spoke to Mick Rockett (South Oxford match secretary) about my mum being 100 he was a bit shocked.

“He said she was awesome when she played and I was a bit surprised about that.”

Fittingly, the party to celebrate her 100th birthday, for which she received a congratulatory card from the Queen, was held at the club.

“We had 78 people there,” said Waller, who turned 100 on February 1. “They were quite surprised that I was 100.”

Born in Frensham, Surrey, Waller moved to nearby Churt when she was eight, and recalls picking potatoes on the farm of Prime Minister David Lloyd George at Tilford as a schoolgirl.

She moved to Oxford after the Second World War with her husband Harry, who died in 1975, and she has two grandchildren, Paul and Amanda, and four great grandchildren, Thomas, Toby, Olivia and Lauren.