A LEOMINSTER woman who was born in the same month that the Gallipoli campaign came to an end during the First World War has celebrated turning 100.

Centenarian Peg Conolly was joined by family, friends and staff at the Bupa care home in Leominster where she now lives, to celebrate the milestone on January 21.

The youngest of three siblings, Mrs Conolly was born in South Shields in 1916 and she trained as a nurse in Halifax before enlisting in the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps at the outbreak of the Second World War.

By the end of 1940, aged 24, she was serving at The Shaftesbury Military Hospital as a theatre sister.

She was then posted overseas, spending time in Durban and Madagascar, where she met Dr Francis Conolly (Frank) who would later become her husband.

Later, she was posted to Lady Moore Military Hospital in Nairobi, before a spell in Kenya and then Mombasa in India and the Burma campaign.

As the end of the war neared she was posted from Deolali back to the UK and served at Catterick on theatre surgical duties until demob.

She was released from active service in February 1946 and returned home to Northallerton, and Frank was demobbed from Pirbright Barracks.

The couple married on June 16 1946 at Northallerton Registry Office and honeymooned in Liverpool, staying at the Adelphi Hotel before taking the Irish ferry to Frank's family home in Coachford County Cork.

Their son, Peter, was born in Cork Hospital and the family were by then living in Leades House, Coachford. They moved briefly to Audenshaw, Manchester, where Mr Conolly worked as a GP, and second son, Tim, was born in June 1951.

The couple returned to Coachford where they lived and worked until retirement in 1972, moving to a cottage by the sea at Toormoor Skibbereen.

In 1982 Mr and Mrs Conolly moved to Defford, Pershore, and then to Eye to be closer to Peter and his family.

Peg moved to Buckfield Road after her husband died in 1992.

She enjoyed several continental holidays with some of her local friends, was an active WI member and a very keen gardener.

She has been a BUPA resident for the last six years and has a grandson, Simon, who lives in Australia, and a granddaughter Rachael, who lives in Bromyard. She also has two great grandchildren, Louis and Mia.