BOWLING fan Beatrice Storms, front right, will crown her 100th birthday celebrations with a special family party today.

But earlier in the week she returned to the green at South Oxford Bowling Club as guest of honour at a surprise bash. Mrs Storms is a founder member of the ladies team.

The club, in Sunningwell Road, gathered some of Mrs Storms’s former team-mates for the occasion.

She said: “It was a wonderful party, there were a few there I had not seen for years.

“It was a complete surprise and there was a cake and flowers.”

Mrs Storms, who represented the county, stopped bowling as she approached her 90s.

Ladies captain Daphne Turnham said: “We had the idea of inviting former members and it worked really well.

Mrs Storms, originally from Dartmouth in Devon, got her love of the sport from husband David, who died 20 years ago.

The couple met in Dartmouth, where Mr Storms was a Naval engineer, before moving to Kennington in the 1950s, when he took a research job with Esso in Abingdon.

They had two children, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Mrs Storms, a member of the Oxford over-60s club and the Kennington Monday Club, will celebrate her 100th birthday with family at a party at the Four Pillars Hotel in Oxford.

And the secret of reaching a hundred?

“I love my food,” said Mrs Storms, “and I have always kept busy. You have to stay active.”