IVY Gunter celebrated her 100th birthday in St Briavels, the village where she was born and spent much of her life.

Family and friends gathered at The Pavilion in St Briavels to celebrate the landmark.

She was born on July 12 1922 in the village.

After leaving school at the age of 14 she went into service and later went to Cheltenham.

During the war she served with the Women’s Timber Corps – which was known as the Lumberjills, initially at Cannop.

She described her time with the WTC as “the happiest of my life”.

She said: “We called it out in the woods.

“We worked for a Mr Light who was at Cannop.

“We had to be at Clanna by 6am.

“It was the happiest time of my life, I couldn’t get out to go to work fast enough in the morning.”

She described how the woodsmen would cut down the timber and the women would burn the brush afterwards.

She was later promoted which meant going to Parkend Station where she would count the logs out.

“I was allowed to go on the lorry and count it out as it went out. You had to be very precise.”

She had a narrow escape when some logs rolled off a lorry. I could have been killed.”

She married Dennis Biddle when she was 22 and they ran Millend Farm, a dairy operation, in Newland.

“We sold our own milk. We used to bottle it ourselves and they had DJ Biddle, Millend Farm on them.”

Ivy returned to St Briavels after the death of her husband and lives next door to daughter Daphne.

Up until six months ago, she used to knit a hat every day for babies in hospital.