WHEN the telegram from the Queen arrived to wish her a happy 100th birthday, Mabel “Mabs” Taylor told her family who gathered for the party: “There must be some mistake. I don’t believe it. I can’t be 100 years old.”

But the cards, flowers and presents that filled her room at Brendoncare in Alton on February 2 assured her she that she had indeed reached her century.

Daughter Penelope Daniel, who had flown from Australia for the occasion, son Roger and grandson Aaron Nother were among the party guests, who also included several of her old friends.

There was also a birthday cake and the party drank a toast to a lady who was born during the First World War and became a nursing assistant during the second.

Born in Godalming on February 2, 1916, Mabs was raised by her mother Edith Norman and went to school in the town. On leaving school at 14, she went into service at one of the big houses that bordered the town and it was there she met her future husband, Roy, who was working as a gardener.

They were married in March 1942 just before Roy enlisted in the Navy, leaving his new wife to enrol as a voluntary aid detachment working alongside military nursing staff in both local and London hospitals. Mabs later took several nursing exams to give her more qualifications for the job.

After the war, and now with a young son and daughter, Mabs and her husband moved to Kingsley after Roy got a job as a gardener for a farmer who ran a market garden business in the village. They moved into a house at Gold Hill, on Kingsley Common, where they lived for 58 years, and during that time Mabs involved herself in community life.

She became a member of the parish council, Kingsley Women’s Institute, the Women’s Fellowship, and Friends of St Nicholas.

Roy died in 1999 and Mabs moved to a flat in Ladyplace Court, Alton, and three years ago became a resident at Brendoncare.

Mabs, who has five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, “really enjoyed her birthday” according to her daughter, who added: “Although she still can’t believe she has reached a 100!”