Happy 104th birthday at party in Leeds for Monica

More than 30 people joined in today’s celebrations at the Assisi sheltered housing complex in Hunslet.

Mrs Budge was centre of attention and staff at the complex continued the tradition they started when she reached 100 of giving Mrs Budge a tiara to wear on her big day.

Great grandmother Mrs Budge lives as independently as she can and uses her mobility scooter to travel from her flat to the cafe at the complex.

Mrs Budge, who still enjoys the odd glass of white wine, loved to dance when she was younger but now has to get her ballroom fix from watching Strictly on TV after hanging up her dancing shoes when she was in her eighties.

Her granddaughter Helen Barrett, 41, of Garforth, said: “She still lives quite independently in a flat at the complex. She likes to go out for fish and chips and on shopping trips to the White Rose. She has worked hard all her life and even now likes to keep her flat clean.

“She’s getting older, but she doesn’t like giving in and she doesn’t like people doing things for her if she can try and do it herself.”

Manjit Bhavra, activities co-ordinator at the Assisi sheltered housing complex, said: “She has made so many friends here. They go and visit her in her flat and they have a good natter and a laugh.”

She added: “Her tipple at the moment is a small amount of white wine which she sometimes has with a meal and if it is red wine then it has to be a very good one.”

- Monica Budge was born on February 21 1913 in Colne, Lancashire.

She left school aged 14 and worked as a cotton weaver in a mill in Burnley. She married husband Edmund when she was aged 23.

She later worked at the Belling factory in Burnley, assembling electric cookers before retiring aged 61.

Her husband Edmund died of cancer in 1965. Mrs Budge moved to Leeds around ten years ago after her daughter Margaret, 70, moved to the city.

She has two grandchildren and three great grandchildren.