A GREAT-GRANDMOTHER, who still lives independently in her own home, is today celebrating her 100th birthday.

Marion Marshall, of Clifton, is toasting the occasion with her family to whom she credits her long and happy life. She also said the key to her wellbeing was to get on with life and avoid “wasting time moaning”.

Born in Wigan in 1915, she lost her father, aged two, when he died at the Somme.

His body was presumed missing but a chance visit by Mrs Marshall and her children in 2001 to the Tyne Cot War Graves Cemetery in Belgium led to the discovery of his grave.

Mrs Marshall returned to the cemetery in 2013 as a special guest at a ceremony to remember the conflict.

After leaving school at 14, she worked in service and was a nanny for a family in Southport in the early 1930s, where she joined an all-female rowing team.

Mrs Marshall moved to York in 1939 with her husband Vincent, who had been offered a job at Rowntree’s. That year he was called up to fight in the Second World War and was stationed as a lorry driver at Reykjavik in Iceland.

He was present at the base to receive the only three survivors of HMS Hood, sunk by the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941.

After the war the couple settled in South Bank, York, and raised their children, Tony and Anne. Mr Marshall lived to 92, having worked at Rowntrees for the rest of his working life.

Mrs Marshall has six grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.