A GREAT-grandmother who lives at a Bromsgrove care home has celebrated reaching her centenary this week.

Marion Pardo, who has lived at Breme Care Home for the last four years joked about her big birthday, saying “It’s not big and it’s not clever.”

She attributed reaching 100 years to “a packet of Walkers salt and vinegar crisps and a glass of lemonade."

Marion was born in Selly Oak to Margaret and Charles Turrell, and she is the last surviving of three siblings and three step brothers and sisters.

a child she was a good swimmer, and a keen pianist, once even playing for the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

After leaving school Marion's first job was working in the financial department of the labour exchange in Birmingham, and when her sister Kathleen was due to have a date with a man called Bill Pardoe, she says “I took a fancy to him instead”, and the two were married in 1938, having two sons, David and John.

Bill passed away in 1968 at the age of 59, but now Marion has four grandchildren, Sally, Sarah, Jeanette and Tina, and five great-grandchildren. She celebrated her 100th birthday with a traditional afternoon tea party with her family and members of staff, complete with a beautiful birthday cake and bucks fizz.

Breme Care Home's activities leader Helen Barron, said: "Marion is an amazing lady. She is very cheeky and loves having a gossip. We are all so proud to be celebrating such a special birthday with her."