A WOMAN who spent 94 years on the Isle of Sheppey has celebrated her 100th birthday in Ryedale.

Mrs Gladys Searle, a resident at the Rivermead Nursing Home, Norton, moved to Helmsley to live with her nephew, Terence Dummott, and his wife, Rosemary, on the death of her husband, and has lived at the nursing home for the past few months.

Mrs Dummott said Mrs Searle was a keen dressmaker for many years, but in recent years she had suffered from arthritis. One of her favourite television programmes is Countdown, she said.

Her husband worked for the gas authority on the Isle of Sheppey.

Mrs Searle has a nephew and three nieces.

Updated: 09:50 Wednesday, June 25, 2003