Bexhill woman celebrates her 100th birthday on VE Day

Gladys Gibbs, of Chichester Close, was born in Cirencester, in Gloucestershire on May 8 1920. Her father was in the Royal Navy and fought at the Battle of Jutland in the First World War.

Her first husband Bert served in the RAF as a wireless operator in South Africa during the war. She remembers dancing in the Market Square in Cirencester on VE Day 1945.

After the war Gladys and Bert moved to Shaftesbury and then St. Albans where their children grew up. She moved to Bexhill in 1994 with her second husband Arthur and she has lived in the same bungalow since then. Arthur died in 1996.

Gladys has three children, seven grandchildren and nine great - grandchildren. A celebration of her birthday was due to be held at the High Woods Golf Club, in Bexhill but this has had to be cancelled due to the restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Her son David said: “It will be a much quieter affair on Friday but we plan to do something later in the year if restrictions are lifted.

“We live close by to Gladys. She still has memories of VE Day.”