“I AM not 100,” said the 100-year-old woman, as her family gathered for a photo. “I was born in 1915, I can’t be 100 already.”

Mary Joan Wells, a woman with roots in the Cotswolds that go back hundreds of years, celebrated her 100th birthday on March 20 at Kingsley House Nursing Home, Tetbury.

Four generations turned out to celebrate Mary’s centenary in a location just a short walk from where she used to holiday more than half a century ago. 

Mary can trace relatives in the area back hundreds of years but lived in London for the first half of her life.

She met her husband Len in 1947, and despite being with the man until his death in 1984 they never had children.

Nephew Alan Fairfax, said, “I think they always treated me as their child, even now we still do the 300 mile round trip five times a year to see her.”

 In 1972, Mary and Len escaped the city, returning to the area her relatives left in the late 1800s.

She lived in Stratton until 1998 before moving to a residential home in central Cirencester; after a fall three years ago, she moved to Kingsley Nursing Home.

And it was here, surrounded by Alan and his wife Pat, their three children six grandchildren, that Mary Joan Wells celebrated being alive for 100 years.