A glass of wine and a walk is what a Great Clifton woman credits for her long life as she turns 100 today.

Kathleen Sydney will celebrate her birthday with family and friends at the Old Ginn House in Great Clifton, with further celebrations at Clarendon Grange tomorrow.

Kathleen laughingly says herself as the home's best resident and puts her longevity down to walking and a glass of dry white wine with meals.

She said: "I couldn't be in a better place. They are all so kind, and I want for nothing."

She added that she disliked television and instead preferred to read the newspaper twice a day. 

She said: "I have to read it in the afternoon again because I've forgotten what I've read in the morning!"

Born in Clay Street to Michael and Agnes McGeown, she spent her early years in Pilgrim Street.

She attended St Patrick's Primary School and Whitehaven Grammar School before training as a hairdresser, seeing customers in her small front room.

During World War Two, she retrained as a nurse in a military hospital at Winwick, near Warrington.

She married Alfred Sydney, the boy next door, in 1942 and the couple settled in Victoria Road.

They had sons, Michael and Paul, and Alf worked at Lakeland Laundries while Kathleen returned to nursing at the then new Workington Maternity Hospital.

Alf died in 1976 aged 61 and Kathleen said she found solace in religion and her emerging family of six grandchildren.

She sang soprano in the Carnegie Singers for many years and enjoyed long walks around the town with her friend Katie Gilmore.

Kathleen later lived in Scalebeck Court, where she was nicknamed Queen of Scalebeck Court because of her neighbourly hospitality on hairdressing day.

She remained independent well into her nineties, and was a familiar figure bustling up the old railway line into town with her shopping trolley.