One unusual alcoholic tipple every day helps Mary reach grand old age of 100 in Milton Keynes town

Mary Taylor celebrated her100th birthday with her friends and family at the Brooklands Centre, with a congratulatory card from the King taking pride of place.

Born in Glasgow, she moved to London as a very young child but was evacuated to Wolverton during the war, at the age of 14.

However, she returned home after only a few weeks as her mother didn’t approve of the family she’d been housed with!

On leaving school at 16, Mary worked as a Clerk at Post Office headquarters in London, then at the Post Office Saving Department in Holloway and also as a Clerical Officer in the Death Claims branch.

While there, Mary met her future husband Jim, who was demobbed from the RAF in 1947. They married in 1950 in Muswell Hill and moved to digs in Reading.

Mary continued to work in Central London as a Clerical Officer for the Ministry of Pensions then she and Jim then relocated to Cheltenham where they both worked for GCHQ.

After returning to the UK, Jim had a second posting to Cyprus from 1977 to 1980. He retired in 1985 but both he and Mary were very active in retirement, being involved with WRVS and Meals on Wheels.

In 2015, the couple moved Newport Pagnell to be looked after by their son Jeremy and daughter-in-law Helen. Sadly, Jim passed away in 2016 at the age of 91, after 66 years of marriage.

Mary has continued to enjoy life in Newport Pagnell, where she has been going to The Brooklands Centre for nearly 10 years, and now attends four or five days every week.

She takes part in seated exercise classes and enjoys all the other activities on offer, as well as making many friends.

Mary has three sons, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

She says she has lived such a long time due to being so well looked after - as well as having a tipple every day in recent years!

Her drink of choice is a snowball, made with Advocaat, a Dutch egg liqueur with alcohol content ranging from 14% to 20% proof, plus lime juice and lemonade.