"Well, I'm not going out dancing,"joked Alice Thwaites when she was asked about her plans for her 104th birthday on Wednesday.

Instead, Mrs Thwaites, who lives at the Langdale Nursing Home in Cowling, was planning to enjoy a tea with relatives to celebrate the remarkable event.

Born before the Boer War near Bury, she worked as a weaver in the cotton trade before moving with her husband to Morecambe, dubbed Bradford-by-the-Sea, in the 1940s where she took in visitors."I met a lot of lovely Yorkshire people during those days by the sea," she said.

She moved to Cross Hills fourteen years ago to live with her brother and sister-in-law and only moved into the nursing home last year.

'I've been very lucky and have a great deal to be thankful for,' she said. And the secret to an extraordinarily long life? 'I'm not sure that I've got a secret, but I do like to talk to people and have a joke,' she said.

Matron of the home, Jan Ackroyd said: 'She doesn't miss a trick.'

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