One hundred years of life was celebrated by a woman born and bred in Oxford with a family party on Sunday, September 2.

Agnes Bird held her centenary party at Glebe House residential home in Mill Street, Kidlington.

Agnes Bird She thoroughly enjoyed the celebrations but said: "I don't know about all this fuss, it's only a birthday."

As a child, she enjoyed being part of a large family, growing up in Sidney Street, Oxford. She recalled: "We used to go to the outdoor pool at Ferry Hinksey a lot and do a lot of walking.

"When my friends came to get me on the way to school they had to wait for ages while I got my little brothers ready to go too."

She and two surviving sisters, Betty Whiting and Dorothy Pepper, who are in their nineties, have outlived two husbands each.

Mrs Bird's first husband, Jack Sansom, whom she married in Oxford in 1920, served in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers during the First World War, and was shot in the elbow during the Battle of the Somme. She went into service in London and saw a lot of the Zeppelin raids on the capital.

Her sister Dorothy married Mr Sansom's brother Bert and her brother Bob wed her husband's sister Fluff.

Mr Sansom died in 1968. Agnes was married again at the age of 73 to Frank Bird, after they met at a biology class. He died in 1992 aged 90.

Mrs Bird has a great-grandson, a grandson and one son, Brian, now 72, who said: "She's a marvellous woman and is very good considering her age. She's had a happy life and been very healthy.

"The only thing that has ever been wrong with her was when she had two new hips in her eighties.

"The people at here at Glebe House have been wonderful towards her."

**Picture: George Reszeter