Celebrationof a life packed with adventure

Twice-widowed Dorothy Dean spent much of her eighties achieving her wish list of things to do.

The ambitions she completed included attending a London Palladium gala performance in honour of the late Queen Mother, a journey on the Orient Express and flying on Concorde.

Her later years have also seen her discover travelling. Austria, Switzerland and Germany were among the mainly European countries she visited.

These adventures were in addition to her lifelong interests in art, the countryside and walking.

Her days are less hectic now and she celebrated reaching her centenary on Friday, December 28,at the Burlington Nursing Home in Victoria Drive.

Mrs Dean was joined by members of her family of one daughter, one grandson, one granddaughter and four great-grandchildren for a champagne toast. She moved into the home two-and-a-half years ago to be closer to her family after having always lived in Watford, where she had been born.

She was the eldest child and only daughter among four children.

She soon became the prime carer for her disabled brother and their mother after one brother died at the age of four in a flu epidemic and another was killed at Dunkirk in the Second World War. Before her first marriage in the early 1930s, Mrs Dean was a secretary at Britain's then biggest printing firm of Waterlow and Sons in London.

But just a year of marriage saw her husband, Stephen, diagnosed with tuberculosis. He had to spend three years recuperating in a sanatorium.

This left Mrs Dean to raise the couple's daughter on her own. Her husband's death led to her working in a munitions factory until the Second World War ended. She went into catering from then on and continued to work into her 70s. The late 1960s saw her remarry, 25 years after Stephen's death. But she became a widow again just four years later when a heart attack claimed the life of her second husband. These adversities failed to dim her enjoyment of living.