THERE were Irish jigs and jazz music when Wales’ oldest living person celebrated her 108th birthday in style with a party in the pub.

And former dancer Amy Winifred Hawkins from Monmouth said: “I’ll do anything to have a party! I have all my faculties and I don’t even feel my age.

“I take everything in my stride and I’m looking forward to what the next year might bring.”

Her musical family joined in a tribute to the great-grandmother at the Bell Inn in Redbrook on Sunday (January 27) led by Feliks Tabis and his jazz band – two days after the big day itself, which she celebrated at the Hadnock Road home she shares with daughter Rozi Morris and four generations of her family

Born in Cardiff on January 24, 1911, more than three years before the outbreak of the First World War, Amy lived most of her life in Newport. But her local links include meeting future husband George Hawkins on a “blind date” at Tintern Abbey, where she had the “magical experience” of watching the harvest moon appear through the round window, and living in Aylburton in her late 90s.

Amy was alive when the zipper, bra, tank, crossword puzzle and first passenger aeroplane were invented shortly after her birth. King George V had just become king, and she is the last surviving person in Wales named on the 1911 census.

She remembers waving the troops off from Newport Station in the 1914-1918 conflict, and as well as the two world wars, her incredible life has encompasssed the development of the car, flight, television, computers and space travel, while film was in its silent screen infancy when she was a child.

During WWII, she served as an ARP firewatcher in Newport and saw the effects of the bombing first hand.

And the mum-of-one, whose 99-year-old youngest sister Lillian is still alive, said the secret of her long life is: “Eating lots of butter, leaving the fat on meat and minding my own business.” 

One of seven children born to Alfred Evans and Maud Evans neé Bryon, Amy moved to Newport at three, where she lived for another 93 years before moving to Aylburton to live with her daughter.

Her earliest memories growing up in the docks area include the Armistice Day celebrations, horse drawn carriages and a terrifying encounter with dock workers carrying machetes, in the 1919 Race Riots. 

Granddaughter Hannah Freeman, a food writer based in Monmouth, said: “Gran enjoyed a rather multicultural upbringing; one aunt was married to a Greek and another to a German, who was interned at the beginning of WW1. 

“At school she was always top of the class, often finishing her work very early and being set the task of knitting socks for her teacher.” 

As a youngster Amy trained as a dancer, and toured across the country starring in productions with her troop ‘The Eight Stellas’.

“She recalls her time spent in pantomime in Lancashire, and being somewhat intimidated by the clog-wearing mill workers who clattered about the cobbles to and from work,” added Hannah.

But mum Maud thought shop work more suitable, and Amy began her career in retail at 15, quickly making a name for herself as a window dresser and winning several prizes while working for The Great Universal Stores.

She enjoyed holidays to Weston-super-Mare and charabanc trips to the Wye Valley, where she met artist and sign-writer George Hawkins on a ‘blind date’.

“Always extremely fashion conscious, while courting her husband-to-be she could often be seen riding on the back of his motorbike wearing grey flannel trousers which she would hide from her mother and change into before starting her journey – “trousers were just not deemed ladylike,” said Hannah. 

They married in 1937, two years before the outbreak of the Second World War when Amy signed up as a fire watcher in the ARP.

“She remembers many of the bombing campaigns which caused considerable damage to Newport - one night in particular saw a whole street razed to rubble with many civilian losses,” added her granddaughter.

Amy’s daughter Rosemary was born in 1947, and in 1967 and 1981 she became a grandmother to Tamzin and Hannah respectively, and later a great-grandmother to Mabli, 19, and Sacha, 12. 

Amy enjoys knitting and crochet, and past hobbies have included gardening, baking and jam-making.

“Her Welsh cakes and fish and chips were the stuff of family legend,” said food writer Hannah. 

Widowed in 1996, Amy lived alone in the tiny cottage she had called home for more than 50 years before joining her daughter and son-in-law in Aylburton in 2007.

The family later moved to Monmouth, where she now lives surrounded by family with four generations all under the same roof, and where she “held court” last Thursday, celebrating her big day and opening her special card from the Queen. 

Hannah added: “Amy is the oldest living person in Wales, she has astonishing memory and  has always had an extremely optimistic outlook.

“She recently recovered from a bout of pneumonia declaring that “she wasn’t ready to go yet!”