By the time you reach the grand age of 105 you may well be running out of ideas for birthday presents.

So Ivy Woolcock lived up to her generous reputation when she decided she would treat 25 family and friends to a celebratory lunch – and requested "no presents please" on the invitations.

Mrs Woolcock dined with four generations of family, which includes two children, two grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, at the George Inn in Meopham.

Other guests included members of Christ Church in Gravesend, where Mrs Woolcock is still very much an active member.

Her eldest daughter, Ann Jones, 73, said: "She is a good member of Christ Church and there is a whole ton of people who pick her up and take her there.

"She is very appreciative of anything done for her and I would say her cup is always half full. She calls us several times a day to thank us."

Mrs Woolcock, nee Saunders, was born in Sittingbourne on March 5, 1911, the youngest of two children, but her roots are firmly in Gravesend.

After leaving school, she trained as a buyer at Harrods and then, once qualified, worked at the John Lewis flagship store in London's Oxford Street.

However, like many women of that era, Mrs Woolcock "retired" when she married Francis Woolcock in 1938 and the couple lived in a flat in Pelham Road, Gravesend.

Mr Woolcock, together with his father, was a Trinity House pilot on the Thames in Gravesend but the Second World War saw the family uproot first to Orkney and then Stranraer in Scotland.

"She is very appreciative of anything done for her and I would say her cup is always half full" - Ann Jones, Ivy Woolcock's daughter

After their first daughter, Ann, was born, Mrs Woolcock returned with her baby to Pelham Road, while Mr Woolcock went on to be stationed in North Africa and Italy.

The family were reunited at the end of the war and had another daughter, Elizabeth, now aged 69, and later lived at other addresses in Essex Road and Windsor Road, Gravesend.

Sadly, Mr Woolcock died of cancer at the age of 71. Mrs Jones said: "Mum was amazing and she rallied. He died in Guy's Hospital and she held coffee mornings every year for years and made marmalade and fundraised for the oncology department there."

It was after her husband's death, added Mrs Jones, that her mum one day simply "went into town and bought a bungalow" in Pinnocks Avenue, also in Gravesend.

She is now a resident at Orchard Cottage Care Home in nearby Old Road East.

"She is registered blind and had a fall and completely lost her nerve," said Mrs Jones. "She went in Orchard Cottage for a bit of respite and said 'I am going to stay here'.

"She is fantastic like that and just makes up her mind to do something, which makes it easier for us. She loves it there and they are great, it is very homely."

For Mrs Woolcock, her heart is definitely in her hometown. "She has lived there for a very long time and still knows old Gravesend families," said Mrs Jones.

"I'm 100 miles away in Winchester and my sister is even farther in Tewkesbury, but she has more contact with people and the community living in Gravesend than she ever would coming here."

Longevity is obviously in Mrs Woolcock’s genes – her sister lived to the age of 99 – and she still has a zest for life.

Mrs Jones said: "She comes and stays here at our cottage and manages to get up the curvy staircase to her bedroom. And she doesn't stop on the landing, gasping for breath.

"She just sails up."