WHEN Evelyn Bodley was born in 1910 women did not even have the vote. But today, on her 100th birthday, she will be voting in her 20th General Election.

In 1918, when Mrs Bodley was eight, only certain women over 30 were allowed to vote. But it was not for a further ten years that she saw voting age for women lowered to 21.

Mrs Bodley has seen parliament change from Liberal at birth, to coalition, then Conservative, to Labour and back to coalition again, with a battle between Labour and Tories since 1945.

She has watched several well-known Prime Ministers come into power from Herbert Henry Asquith, David Lloyd George, Neville Chamberlain, Sir Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson.

She witnessed the last Liberal PM in power, Asquith, from birth until the age of five and now at 100 she may yet see the Lib Dems in power for the first time in 95 years with Nick Clegg.

Evelyn was born in Cowthorpe, near Tockwith, and moved to York in 1955. She has outlived two husbands and two children. She and her first husband, John Matthews, known as Jack, had six children – John, Margaret, Dennis, Carole, Jean who died of cancer at 71 and Lynn who died at 17 months of cot death.

Sadly, Jack passed away in 1965. Mrs Bodley got remarried to Joe Bodley in the late 1970s, but he died in 1992.

Julie Maycock, Mrs Bodley’s granddaughter, said: “She knows what she wants, she’ll say if she’s not happy, she’s quite vocal and isn’t like a typical 100-year-old because she tells you what she wants.

“She doesn’t like the thought of people knowing how old she is. She likes people to think she is younger than she is, she’s quite proud like that. My grandmother will be voting Labour, she always votes Labour.”