Reaching the age of 100 is an impressive milestone some people would mark with a lavish party.

But for one Northfleet woman, a much simpler celebration was on the cards.

Violet Bartholomew became a centenarian yesterday and celebrated with a slap up supper – of fish and chips.

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Speaking ahead of the big day, the great-grandmother said: “I’m going to go into Gravesend with family.

“They’ll wheel me around in my wheelchair, because I don’t get out much now and I haven’t been into the town for a long time and then we’ll have fish and chips at Reliance Fish Restaurant.”

VIDEO: Violet Bartholomew talks about turning 100

Mrs Bartholomew says “good living and good food” are the secret to a long life, adding: “I just take things as they come.”

She is diabetic and admits she is supposed to have “special food” but actually eats “whatever I fancy in moderation”.

She said: “I don’t smoke and the only time I drink is at Christmas when I have a snowball.”

When asked whether she has embraced any aspects of modern technology she said: “I’ve not got myself a phone or a computer or any other newfangled things. I’ve just stuck to what I always did.”

But she admits she is impressed when her younger relatives take photos on their mobile phones and can show them to her straight away.

Mrs Bartholomew was born in Edwin Street, Gravesend, and went to Wrotham Road Primary School and Gordon School, where she enjoyed needlework and writing.

After leaving school at 16, she went to work in a paper mill where she met her future husband William.

During the war, while working at another paper mill in Greenhithe, a young Violet made shell cases.

She said: “It was a terrible job. We had to use hot glue. Every time the siren went off we had to go down three flights of iron steps to get into the air raid shelter.”

Mrs Bartholomew, who was one of seven children, recalls one particularly bad raid.

“One night the old doodlebugs came over and set my mum’s front bedroom alight,” she said.

“That night we all had to go to the public shelter. That was the night the Tilbury Hotel was bombed and burnt down. We used to go into the house in the daytime but in the night-time we went to the public shelter.

“It was frightening and we used to hate it. My dad was an air raid warden and had to go knock people up when the sirens went off but he saw us safely into the shelter first.”

She later worked in the Co-op and then the chemists that eventually became Boots.

Violet married William on March 20, 1943 and they had one daughter Sue, now Atkin.

Mr Bartholomew died aged 71.

She has two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.