A GREAT grandmother who is among the oldest people in Gwent, can remember the ‘Peaceday’ celebrations for the end of the First World War.

Amy Winnifred ‘Win’ Hawkins, who lives in Monmouth, marked her 106th birthday on Tuesday 24th January with a party at The Bell Inn in Redbrook, last Sunday surrounded by friends and family.

Born in 1911, she spent most of her life in Newport as a window dresser for large firms such as Great Universal Stores and during the Second World War, her job was a Fire Watcher. This entailed spells of duty on the roof of buildings to smother any incendiary bombs in our section with sandbags or, if a fire had already started, to drench it with water using a stirrup pump and a bucket of water until the fire brigade took over.

She also worked in theatre and was a dancer in her younger days.

She now lives with her only daughter, Rozi Morris, in Monmouth and is still fully mobile, saying that she hasn’t been to the doctor for at least ten years.

“I have always enjoyed my life”, she said, “I eat a lot of fish and butter.”

She has two granddaughters, a great grandson, Sasha Freeman and a great granddaughter, Mabel Powell who helped her celebrate along with her sister, Lil Thomas who is 97 and her goddaughter Susan Teale.