HARD work, clean living and a good family have been credited for helping a doting great great grandmother reach her 103rd birthday today.

Hilda Floyd was born in Thorganby in 1911, a month after King George V was crowned king and when most of the country was perspiring in 80F (27C) temperatures.

One of five children, she worked on her family’s smallholding at 14 and remained in agriculture throughout her life with her husband Jack, a farm labourer, whom she married when she was 18.

Her youngest daughter Wendy Fineron said: "She has done everything on a farm, except milk cows. She refused to do that!"

Mrs Floyd had eight children - Dorothy, Terry, Bill, John, Bernard, Ron, Alan known as Tut, and Wendy, outliving the four eldest, and has 15 grandchildren, five step grandchildren, 20 great grandchildren, and seven great great grandchildren.

The couple lived in Thorganby until 1950 when they moved to Melbourne. They regularly attended Melbourne Methodist Chapel together, and Mrs Floyd still goes today. She is also in the Good Companions Club and Yorkshire Country Women's Association.

A sports enthusiast, she played hockey as a girl, and only gave up bowling at 97 due to ailing eyesight and now enjoys watching cricket, athletics and snooker on television.

"She has never been abroad in her life," said Wendy, from Stamford Bridge. "They just weren't interested. They used to go to the East Coast, usually Bridlington, or Scarborough for the cricket.

"She puts her long life down to hard work, never smoking or drinking and having a good family.

"She has always been a good mum. With eight of us we often said we didn't know how she did it. She says it was hard but that's what kept her going."

Mrs Floyd who still lives in the family's Melbourne home is having a party with well-wishers today to toast her birthday.