ONE of the oldest people in the country will celebrate her 109th birthday in a Guiseley nursing home on Saturday.

The outbreak of the Boer War was still seven years off when Florence Rawlings was born in 1892.

The centenarian, who now lives in Ghyll Royd Nursing Home, remembers Queen Victoria travelling through her village in a horse-drawn carriage and she married in the year the Titanic sank.

She came of age the year before World War One started and reached the grand old age of 91 before upping sticks and moving more than 200 miles to start a new life in Yorkshire.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the oldest woman in the world is Eva Norris of Stone, Staffordshire who is 115 years old.

Ghyll Royd activities co-ordinator John Webster said that although Mrs Rawlings is deaf and cannot walk unsupported, she is still in charge of her faculties and is fiercely independent.

"Florence is quite remarkable," he said. "She can still get from A to B in her wheelchair, and still enjoys reading and the entertainers that we have in.

"She's still in charge of her

faculties and has a busy day planned for her birthday."

Mr Webster added that birthday plans included lunch with family members and a party later that day in the home.

Born in Middlesex, Mrs Rawlings (nee Tilbury) grew up in Datchet, near Windsor. After leaving school she worked in

service for a short time before marrying Albert in 1912.

At 91 she moved to Yorkshire with her son Norman, now 75, and her daughter-in-law Betty, with whom she lived with in Baildon until 1997.

She had seven children, and has 16 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and five great-great grandchildren.

l A Pool-in-Wharfedale resident has celebrated her 100th birthday this week with a visit by Otley mayor Councillor Christine Campbell. Lucy Bibbs, who lives at Snellroyd Residential Home, was born in India on April 9, 1901, her father was a boiler maker and made the engines for the steam trains in South India.

Lucy returned home with her brother and sister when she was ten, living with her grandparents in a small Suffolk town called Leiston.

Lucy married a local man in 1924 and the day after her

wedding came to live in Pudsey. She has one daughter, four

grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

l The oldest woman ever was Jeanne Louise Calmert, of France, who died when she was 122 years, 164 days old. The oldest ever man was Shigechiyo Izumu of Japan who died in 1986 aged 120 years, 237 days. The oldest living man is 111 from Oklahoma.