FORMER landlady of the Blackbird Inn at West Buckland, Olly Lucas, has celebrated her 100th birthday.

Olly – Olive – marked the occasion with a tea party for family, friends and residents at the The Court in Wellington, where she has lived for the last four-and-a-half years.

She was born on August 2, 1918, in Northampton, the youngest of six children. The family moved to Birmingham and when Olly left school she worked at The Austin Motor Company as a shorthand typist.

The factory made planes instead of cars during the Second World War and Olly put the rivets in the wings. She met her future husband, Evan Lucas, at the factory – he was her foreman.

The couple married in 1940 and had two sons, Kenneth and Donald.

During their time in Birmingham they had grocery and greengrocery shops, as well as an outside catering business.

In 1968 they sold up there and the family moved to Taunton to take the tenancy of The Four Alls in Corporation Street.

Four years later they became mine hosts at the Blackbird Inn, again with family, and ran it for nine years before retiring in 1980.