Family and friends gathered round on Wednesday afternoon (5/10) to celebrate the hundredth birthday of a Constantine woman.

Millie Florence Willie, known as Ciss, was joined by her daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren as she marked her centenary at Constantine Social Club.

Ciss was born in Ipswich in Suffolk, the second eldest of 12 children, and raised many of them herself.

Her daughter Sandra Hocking said: "When she had married she told my dad she didn't want any children, she had brought them up already.

"But she did have me, I'm the only one."

She met her husband Jack in Ipswich, where he was working during the war, while she was working in a factory, and the two married on April 1, 1944, and moved to Constantine the same year, before having Sandra in April 1948.

In Constantine Ciss worked in a factory in Penryn and on the land, picking potatoes, as well as being a fire guard and working in shops.

She worked in a shop belonging to her sister-in-law, and in a friend's pub, as well as at Rowe's Stores in Constantine, and her sister Sheila Chenery said: "She never stopped working."

Sheila said: "She used to manage the garden, and she came all the way from Cornwall when I was married, and used to decorate the house for my mum."

Sandra added: "I even had to go up with her when I was a youngster, and had to go to school in Ipswich when I was up there."

Sheila said her older sister was "marvellous," and added: "I phone her every Saturday and she hasn't changed from the time I her when we were little."

Instead of presents on her birthday, Ciss asked partygoers to offer a charity donation, and £415 was raised for Friends of Constantine Surgery.