Great great great grandmother Alice Edgeway has celebrated her 100th birthday with five generations of her family. MARK CHANDLER went to meet her.

ALICE Edgeway, whose carers call her "the queen", has four children and three great great great grandchildren.

The 100-year-old, of Vicarage Road, Plumstead, said: "I'm very strong-willed and I think that's what's kept me going this long.

"I haven't had an easy life.

"My secret is to have good food, don't lay around, just get on with things and keep a good spirit."

Alice was born on September 10, 1908, in Bermondsey, but grew up in Deptford.

Her mother died when Alice was just nine, leaving her to help her father raise four brothers and sisters.

Then, at the age of 14, she went to live with her aunt in Catford and it was there she met Thomas, her husband of 58 years, in 1926.

The couple had four children, Tom, now aged 81, Ron 79, Veronica, 76 and Ken, 70, before her husband died in 1984.

She said: "England has certainly changed. I think the older days were better than now.

"We could leave the key in the door and the teenagers now don't do what they used to do."

During the First World War, Alice worked as a machine operator at Woolwich Arsenal while Thomas, later an interior decorator, served in the Home Guard.

Their children were evacuated to Yorkshire but Alice brought them back home concerned about the conditions they were living in.

She later went to work at a Lewisham station kiosk but spent most of her life look- ing after her children and grandchildren.

Once she hit her 60s, Alice started visiting Tom in Canada, a time she describes as the best of her life.

During one visit in the 1970s, she narrowly avoided being caught up in a tornado which killed 60 people.

She explained: "I'm a survivor and I don't give in.

"I've had three accidents this year, two broken arms and a bad leg from falls, and I've survived it on my own.

"Every time they wanted me to stay in the hospital I said no, I'm staying home'."

She is now only partially sighted, something she attributes to looking after her husband when he was ill with Parkinson's disease.

"When I was 76 my husband was a very ill man and I looked after him.

"I nursed him for three years at home and it sent me blind.

"I had to live without my eyesight. It's worse now - I can hardly see anything. But I'm a survivor."

Around 120 people came to her 100th birthday at Charlton Community Centre, Maryon Road, Charlton, which was celebrated with dancing and karaoke singing.

She said: "It was out of this world. I think I had 100 photos taken."

EVENTS DURING ALICE'S LIFETIME

1908 Ford introduces the Model-T car

1914 The First World War breaks out

1928 The voting age for women was lowered to 21 in line with men

1945 The US drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

1951 Colour TV is introduced

1966 England win the World Cup

1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain's first woman prime minister

1997 Princess Diana is killed in a car crash

2001 Two planes are flown into the World Trade Center in New York