A GREAT-GRANDMOTHER who first moved to the Forest 80 years ago cele- brated her 100th birthday with 60 family and friends at a party at the Speech House.

Vera Prisk was born in Southend-on-Sea on June 12, 1919 to parents Stephen and Ethel Fowler, and toasted her centenary exactly 100 years to the day last Wednesday.

Despite attending 13 schools during her childhood, owing to her father moving all over the country with the Church Army, she moved to the Forest in 1939 when he became a curate at Coleford St Johns Church, and has spent all but three of the last 80 years here.

Son Anthony said: “Her father moved around a lot and Vera found herself living in Stockton, Oxford, Portsmouth, Burnham-on-Sea, Bath and Putney, so she attended 13 different schools with brother Donald, who is now 97 and living in Somerset.

“In 1938 she attended Battersea Polytechnic for a household and catering management course, but with the onset of war in 1939, she moved to Coleford to join her mother and father, who by this time had been ordained into the Church of England.”

Mum-of-two Vera – who has four grandchildren, Rebecca, Royston, Amber and Matthew, and four great-grandchildren Grace, Oscar, Sienna and Caleb – met her future husband Ken Prisk at a party in Coleford and was married on August 2, 1941, before following him to Lincolnshire where he was stationed at RAF Swinderbury.

They later moved back to Coleford to live on Lords Hill with Ken’s mum, and had two sons, Anthony and Lindsay.

Ken went on to be the secretary warden to Coleford Community Association in the then Town Hall, followed by a move to a new centre in Bank Street until his retirement, while Vera undertook voluntary work at the Dilke Hospital, before working at Badmans’ Jewellers in Coleford as a window dresser, as well as doing B&B at their home on Lords Hill.

In 1987 they moved into a new home, again on Lords Hill, and after the death of Ken in 2001 Vera enjoyed eight years of holidays with Grindles Coaches, and visited Venice in 2003 and New Zealand in 2004 to visit family.

Vera still enjoys an active retirement, attending the Hard of Hearing Club and the Dr Charley Luncheon Club, as well as meeting up with friends at the cafe in the Co-op store.

After staying put for 75 years in Lords Hill, Vera will shortly be moving to Supported Living at the newly built Dora Matthews House in Bank Street, on the same site where husband Ken once worked.

Anthony added: “Asked about the secret of her long life, she says ‘just luck’, but we would like to add ‘total determination’.”