A card from the Queen was one of the highlights of a very special day for Clare Shimmin.

Friends and family gathered at her home on Saddle Mews, Douglas, to celebrate her 100th birthday.

She said of turning 100: ’I can recommend it, I have so many cards and flowers that I can barely move!

’It’s like a flower shop, I don’t know where to put them all. People are very kind.’

Born in Colne, Lancashire, she moved to the island in 1944 and is one of the few island residents remaining who saw service in the Second World War.

Clare joined the ATS aged 19 and travelled around as a projectionist teaching enemy aircraft recognition.

Son Michael said: ’She recalls being stationed on the coast outside Hull and watching the bombers flying in overhead and dropping their bombs on the city.

’She was also in Llandudno when the heavy anti-aircraft batteries on the Great Orme were firing at bombers attacking Liverpool.

She also recalls the wounded being brought back from D-Day.’

Clare met her husband Thomas Bernard Shimmin in the Army and the couple were married at St Ninian’s church in January 1943.

They moved to the island shortly before the birth of their first son Graham so that he would be Manx.

Michael said: ’My father was very badly burned by a phosphorous grenade in a training accident and on travelling through London to see him she was near-missed by a V1 rocket. He was hospitalised where he underwent early techniques in plastic surgery and was an early recipient of penicillin.’ For many years Clare ran a guest house in Christian Road and then was manageress of Rhoda’s, a ladies fashion shop in Castle Street. Her husband was the commercial manager of what is now Manx Utilities.

He passed away in September 2017.