A MAN who today celebrated his 100th birthday says the secret of a long life is hard work - and a drop of what you fancy.

In Ronald Burton Milner's case, the drop is a tot of whisky before he goes to bed and a glass of Guinness with his Sunday lunch.

Born in Diamond Street, York, Mr Milner now lives in Osgodby, near Selby, where he celebrated his centenary with a piece of birthday cake and, of course, a drop of the hard stuff.

His father, Robert, was a waggoner with Bowman's Removals, in York, and his mother, Gertrude, was from the well-known Pink family of photographers, in York.

He was a pupil at the city's Park Grove School until he left, at the age of seven, to go with his mother to Selby, where he lived in Brook Street and attended Abbey School.

Mr Milner left school in 1917 to work at Selby Shipyard, later moving to Fletcher's factory, in the glass blowing department.

In 1928 he married Lilian Tyerman, daughter of a Drax farmer. He then started work at the BOCM animal feed factory, where he remained for the next 40 years - broken only by five years with Kingston Upon Hull Constabulary during the war.

In his youth he played football and cricket in the Selby and Drax leagues.

After his retirement from BOCM in 1968, Mr Milner kept himself active in his large garden and orchard at Menthorpe Hall, near North Duffield, with occasional cycle rides to York and Selby.

He was married for 61 years before his wife died in 1989.

Mr Milner has a son, Kenneth, two daughters, Maureen Egan, of Hemingbrough, and Barbara Snowden, of Staffordshire, five grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.

Updated: 10:56 Tuesday, February 18, 2003