A BRADFORD woman who drove Army vehicles in the Second World War has celebrated her 100th birthday.

May Monk left school and enrolled at a local art college, when she was just 11. But her mother was concerned about career prospects for a budding artist so, aged 14, May went to work in a department store.

In 1941 she was conscripted into the Army, where she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service and spent the next four years driving ambulances and armoured vehicles in the war.

After the war May married husband Richard, known as Dick, and the couple had five children. Dick's sales job meant the family moved around, living in Scotland, Cumbria, Surrey, East Yorkshire, Halifax and returned to May's birthplace, Hull, before settling in Bradford in the 1960s.

May rekindled her love of painting and went on to create hundreds of pictures, occasionally exhibiting them. May, who has 11 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren, decided in 2019 to put some of her artwork up for sale at the Saltaire Arts Trail and donated the proceeds to the RNLI in recognition of her Hull roots and the city’s maritime history.

May, who has received a message of congratulations from Buckingham Palace for her centenary, celebrated with her family at Brookfield Care Home in Nab Wood, where she has lived for the last nine years.

Said May: “Celebrating my 100th birthday with my family and receiving a message from the Queen has been fantastic. The team at Brookfield made it extra special, with a wonderful cake. It was a day to remember.”

Managing director Konrad Czajka, from Czajka Care Group, which owns Brookfield Care Home, said: “May has lived an amazing life and is clearly someone who is much-loved by her family and friends and puts others first, from doing her bit in World War Two to selling her artwork for charity. She thoroughly deserved her big day.”