A GREAT-grandmother who has just celebrated her 100th birthday has shared her memories of the Blitz on the 70th anniversary of the period.

Joan Galloway, who grew up in South Woodford and went to Loughton High School, celebrated the landmark by having her hair dyed her favourite colours of pink and gold as well as partying with her friends and family.

Now living in Great Yarmouth near her daughter, she said she remembers living through the Blitz in Broadmead Road, South Woodford.

“My father used to go out on night duty,” she said. “He was in the printing ink business. He couldn't be in the war because he'd had a stroke.

“I remember him going out at night and coming back with a piece of shrapnel from a bomb site in Woodford. It wasn't nice.

“My grandma had a cellar and we used to go down there (during air-raids). My uncle had built it with a lot of wood and it was safe.”

Mrs Galloway was in her late 20s during the Blitz and her daughter, Joan Mathieson, was born in 1942.

Mrs Mathieson, 67, said her grandmother used to take her in her pram to shelter near Woodford Underground station during air-raids.

She added that her mother was still very lively and popular at the care home where she lives.

"She's still very with-it. She forgets things from time to time, but we all do," she said. "She likes reading and she doesn't like to sit there not doing anything."

Mrs Galloway worked as a milliner in Bond Street, where she made a hat for the Queen at one point.

“I enjoyed millinery,” she said. “I was frightened when the war was on, but I still went out and did it.”

She celebrated her birthday, on August 24, with a trip to the sea front in Great Yarmouth on a pony and trap and a party at her home in the town, with friends, family and the mayor and mayoress.

“It was a lovely day,” she said. “I've got lots of friends here to celebrate with.”

She said that long life ran in her family, as her great-grandmother lived to 103.