A Second World War nurse who still keeps fit by attending weekly exercise classes turns 100 today.

Great-grandma, The Honourable Joan Pover, from Hadlow, has raised thousands of pounds for charity and supported countless children through work with a youth group.

And it's not just Joan's big day her family will be celebrating, but also her great grandaughter Martha's, who turns five today.

Joan was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on Christmas Day in 1921, to parents Lilla, a nursery teacher, and Fenner Brockway, an activist and writer, who would become Lord Brockway in 1964, when he entered the House of Lords.

Lord Brockway is known as a socialist politician, anti-war activist and campaigner.

Between 1950 and 1964, he was Labour MP for Eton and Slough, and in 1950 founded the charity War on Want, which fights global poverty.

Joan and her four sisters grew up in the Hertfordshire countryside, in a house designed by their mother.

Remembering her childhood, Joan said: "I think I had a good beginning. We lived in the countryside, we spent a lot of time in the fields and camping."

The year after she was born, her father co-authored a critique on the English prison system, which resulted in a wave of reform. He wrote more than 20 books on politics and four volumes of an autobiography.

Despite her father's eminence, at home he was just "my dad", Joan says.

"He played down his politics and importance when he was at home, he was just my dad.

"Sometimes in the summer I saw him sitting in the garden writing," she recalls.

She loved having her birthday on Christmas Day, because it meant her father, who usually travelled a great deal, was always home for her special day.

From the age of five, Joan knew she wanted to be a nurse.

She was given a doll's pram and cut the fabric to create windows, so it resembled an ambulance.

"I used to tear around the garden with half a dozen dolls in this pram and I called it an ambulance," she said.

Before the war she began her training at a TB hospital in Epping Forest, and then during the war was posted to a hospital in Romford, east London.

The area was frequently targeted by German bombers, thanks to the nearby railway line, and Joan nursed injured Londoners as well as soldiers.

She hated the underground air raid shelters, and once while in her room, a piece of shrapnel came though her window and landed on her bed. At the end of the war, she worked in a ward for spinal injuries.

In 1946 she married bomber pilot Sam Pover and after the war the pair moved to Jersey where they remained until 1955.

The couple, who later divorced, had four children, and Joan worked in a canteen while they were at school.

She was heavily involved in The Woodcraft Folk group, which was about getting young people out of the city, to enjoy the countryside.

Joan was on the national committee and organised group trips abroad.

Affectionately known as Oaky, she still gets phone calls from former members now.

In her 70s she moved to Hadlow to be close to her younger sister, Olive, and the pair raised money and held events for Hospice at Home.

Joan now keeps herself busy by attending an exercise session once a week and play reading classes.

Son Martin, 73, says his mother has lived an "eventful life" and called her "brilliant and incredibly caring".

"She's very forthright," he added. "We were always kicked out of the house to play outside. She's determined to be independent. She has got loads of stories of the war time."

Joan plans to mark her birthday next week with friends and family at Hadlow Manor Hotel.