A great-grandma has revealed her secret to a long life after celebrating her 100th birthday.
Irene Sproston, from Stoke-on-Trent, was inundated with cards and flowers as well as receiving visits from friends and family for her centenary on Monday.
But she didn't celebrate with a glass of champagne as she doesn't drink alcohol, and instead she enjoyed a nice cup of her favourite Typhoo tea.
"I kept thinking I would never get to 100 but I have managed it," she said.
"I have always kept busy and never been idle. Life has been rough and tumble, but you have to keep going - there's nothing else for it. There are lots worse off than me."
Her home was so full of decorations inside and out that even passers-by who didn't know the former dinner lady stopped by to wish her well.
Irene, whose husband Eric, a former miner, died in 2003, has four children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
The couple married at St James Church in Newchapel when Irene was 19 and Eric was 21 - on a day that was so wet their photographer didn't turn up, she told StokeonTrentLive.
When she got married, Irene's job was to fill bullets at Swynnerton, and she also worked in munitions at Radway Green. She went on to work at Meakin's Newfield Pottery, in Tunstall, where she was a dipper, before working in 'every shop in the village' - including the post office.
She finished her working life as a dinner lady at the then Fegg Hayes Primary School, where she worked for 10 years from 1979 to 1989.
And as well as drinking eight cups of tea a day, Irene said keeping busy and being kind has helped her to reach the milestone birthday.
"I've always tried to be kind, and people have been kind to me in return. I've got a brilliant family and lots of friends. I've got a lot to be thankful for and I feel quite overwhelmed," she said.
Daughter Carole Ball lives with her mum in the house she was born in, and granddaughter Nicola Belford lives next door.
Nicola, 39, said: "Nan is an amazing, inspirational lady. She's the button that holds our family together, and I am so proud to call her my nan.
"She is very well-known in Fegg Hayes and has even had cards from people she doesn't know, who have seen the decorations and wanted to congratulate her."
Carole, 65, added: "She always been so welcoming and would always put the kettle on for my friends and Nicola's friends. She's my world."
