A CENTENARIAN who enjoys a glass of red wine and some chocolate has turned 107.

Joyce Bevir, who lives at Park Manor care home in St Aldhelm’s Road in Branksome was joined by her daughter, Drucilla March, for a summer tea party complete with cakes and Pimms on Friday, August 19.

Despite a small fall recently and not quite believing that it was her birthday, Joyce was in high spirits for the event, which was also attended by staff and the home’s fellow residents.

Karen Muspratt, senior carer at the home, said: “Joyce is such a character. She loves a glass of red wine and her chocolate desserts.

“We like to celebrate people’s birthdays at Park Manor. We just think ‘Why not?’ We always give them flowers, a cake and we sing Happy Birthday to them. We have a good activities team who organise the birthday celebrations.”

Her daughter, Drucilla, said that her mum was brought up in the Channel Islands just before the First World War. She came to the UK and couldn’t return to Jersey, so she settled in Bristol, where she met her husband, Edward, whom she married on December 21, 1940.

Together the couple went on to welcome a son, Michael, and then their daughter, Drucilla.

Joyce continued to care about her birthplace throughout her life, even asking on her birthday when she would next be going to visit.

Her daughter said: “She obviously never forgot about Jersey. I remember that we went there every summer in my childhood, as well as going on skiing holidays, although my mother would never ski.”

Instead, Joyce took comfort in life’s simple pleasures such as spending time with the family and gardening with a particular passion for freesias.

Drucilla said that her mum continued to move around the UK for the rest of her life until she and Edward retired to Parkstone in 1965 due to her husband’s interest in sailing.

Drucilla said: “Mum has four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren to the family, with three great-grandchildren living in America, two in Scotland and one in Oxford.

“If you ask her what the secret to getting to 107 is, I think she would say it’s in her genes.”