A LIVELY centenarian, who entertained injured troops during World War One, was again the centre of attention when celebrating her 100th birthday in Poole this week.

Win Cox, who was born on 29 August 1907, still has a glint in her eye and a ready quip when regaling visitors with stories about her days entertaining the troops.

She was not even a teenager when she was asked to dance for soldiers returning from the Battle of the Somme during the First World War, while she was living in her birth city of Sheffield.

"I had just started dancing lessons so it was quite an honour," beamed Win.

Before the outbreak of World War Two, she had moved to Hong Kong with her late husband Bert, where she was asked to perform The White Cliffs of Dover.

She recalled: "Before the war, the governor of Hong Kong wanted to put on a play called The White Cliffs of Dover and he asked me if I could recite the words for him which I did."

Having been in the Sheffield Rep and the YMCA Dramatic Society as well as once performing as Florence Nightingale and a regular reciter of poetry, Win has never been a shrinking violet.

Win was in her mid 30s when she was made a prisoner of war in Hong Kong, where she was joined by her husband, who worked for an electrical and mechanical company in the colony.

It may as well have been yesterday, for Win, who remembered: "When the Japanese attacked we battled them bravely with 10,000 soldiers but were expecting them by sea and they came by land."

She added: "We were allowed quite a lot of freedom but were punished whenever we did something they did not approve of and they could stop everyone's food and water for one person's actions."

Yesterday Win was once again the centre of attention at her home in Poole, as she was visited by her nephews, godchildren and relatives from across the country.

Win's own father lived to 104, and even at 100 she still lives in her own home, which her husband built for her. She enjoys a tipple of sherry and rarely goes to bed before midnight.

Goddaughter Heather Glover, who was only four when she was also made a prisoner of war, said: "My godmother knows a lot of people here now, both through the church and the foreign girls she used to teach.

"She has had visitors from Nottingham, Sheffield, Cornwall and France, which shows her popularity."