A GREAT-great-grandmother marked her 100th birthday by raising hundreds of pounds for a lifesaving charity.

Mary Griffiths, who still lives independently in her Newnham home, said: “At my age I don’t really need presents, so I asked family and friends to make a donation to the Severn Area Rescue Association.

“I’m delighted that we collected nearly £800, and I’d like to thank all who donated.”

The arrival of her centenary card and letter from the Queen was a highlight for staunch Royalist Mary, who has already had it framed and given pride of place on her living room wall.

“She’s marvellous, she’s never put a foot wrong,” she says.

Born in Maisemore on June 16, 1918, a first child for Charles, a sailor, and Nelly Hart, Mary’s mum soon moved us to Broadoak – “there were 12 other children in the Maisemore house, always playing with me, and mum needed peace and quiet,” she laughed.

She and her brother Alfred, born in 1923, went to Newnham School, where headteacher Mr King “had beautiful handwriting and made us do it every day with cross nibbed pens you dipped in the ink wells.

“It was very strict – the boys got the cane, but us girls got away with it – we were just sent outside to stand in the corrider,” she recalled.

Grammar school in Cinderford followed before going into service at 15 with a vicar and his wife in Derbyshire.

“Dad was now a postman in Awre, but I knew mum was struggling for money, so I became a housemaid. They looked after me, but I had to go to church every Sunday and Christian Endeavour classes in midweek, and I missed my family.

“So at 19 I moved to work for Lady Marling at Stanley Park in Stroud, where a huge staff included eight gardeners, a butler and a footman.

“Then I moved to Tetbury to work for a military man. When he asked me to get his Sam Browne shoulder belt, I had no idea what he was on about,” smiled Mary.

She had already met future husband Percy Baker, an enginer at BAC in Bristol, through the church choir at Stanley Park, and they married at Westbury Church on August 5, 1939, less than a month before the start of World War II.

“No one really thought we’d be at war within days, it came as a real shock,” she said. “We moved to Bristol, but I can remember the bombs falling and I moved home to Broadoak when I was expecting our son Alan, who was born in November 1940.”

When Percy got work locally, they moved to a pre-fab in Churchdown, and had their second son John in September 1945.

“It was lovely – three bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom – and we stayed for 10 years. We were very happy there, before having a house built in Wintle’s Hill in Westbury in 1954,” she recalled.

Jobs in a café and a grocers in Gloucester helped make ends meet before Mary started work at the Westbury Court retirement home, where she stayed for some 35 years, before retiring in 1983, a year after moving to her current Newnham home.

After Percy passed away in 1986, Mary married Jim Griffiths, who she lived with for 10 years until his death in 1997.

“I inherited stepson Tony through Jim, and his family has been so supportive to me, while my son John does my garden. I love gardening and flowers, particularly carnations.”

Mary, who has four grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren, also loves German musician André Rieu – “he’s my pin up” – while she visits the Friendship Club and Newnham Club as part of a busy social life.

“I don’t feel any different to when I was 80, and I get up each day and look forward to it,” she adds. “I’d say the secret of a long life is a marvellous family and always looking forward to what the day will bring.”

Her party at the Newnham Club on Saturday, June 16, was attended by more than 100 guests.

“It was a wonderful celebration, with the Dean Forest Male Voice Choir and a dance band.”

And looking back over her long life, she added: “When I was a child, there were more horses and carts than cars… us kids used to ‘lag’ a lift on the back of a delivery cart coming home from school. I’ve never learnt how to drive… and I’m not going to learn now.

“It’s been an incredible time to live in, with the invention of things like television, phones, air travel and computers.”