A nursing home held a party to celebrate a "happy-go-lucky" resident's 100th birthday.

Irene Reynolds turned 100 on September 16 at Queens Court Nursing Home in Queens Road, Buckhurst Hill, where she has lived since 2012.

The party was attended by her her two children and one of her grandchildren.

Mrs Reynolds was born six weeks after the outbreak of the First World War in Bow.

She started work in a nearby match factory after leaving school.

After the war, Mrs Reynolds herself mothered two children, Harry and Pauline, themselves born on the outbreak of the Second World War, in 1937 and 1939. 

Her children were evacuated during the Blitz but Irene stayed behind to continue the war effort in Bow.

After the war she was one of the first residents in the newly built Debden housing estate, created to ease the pressures of people moving from the bombed out East end.

The creation of estates would also allow for the slum clearance and renewal in the East end but Mrs Reynolds never returned to live in Bow.

In the 1970s she started work in an Ozalid factory on Debden industrial estate, developing and copying photographs for newspapers and architectural plans.

Unfortunately her husband Harry, a naval officer in the war, died in 1971 leaving her to live alone for 40 years.

Her daughter, Pauline, who visits her everyday bringing her favourite snacks, said: “I’m so proud of my mum. She is so happy-go-lucky and was a real grafter working every day of her life until she retired. She has always supported me through my life and now I’m supporting her.”