The secret to a long and happy life is to eat all the wrong things, especially cream cakes and doughnuts, says Dorothy Harrison who has just celebrated her 100th birthday.

Mrs Harrison, from Nickleby Road, Chalk, was born in Gravesend in September 1915, and has lived in the area all of her life. She started working at The Co-operative when she was 13. It was here where she first met her husband, Ernest.

Mr Harrison was known as ”the whistling baker” as he would always whistle when he delivered bread and cakes. He started working with a horse and cart and then with an electric one.

The great-grandmother of four, said: “We met on a coach outing and we got on really well, but when he got home he left me standing there. The next Saturday he was standing outside waiting for me to come out.”

The couple were married on August 6, 1938 at a methodist church and went on to have two children. They got caught in the Blitz on a day trip to London during the Second World War as Mr Harrison had 24 hours leave, from the army, so he told his wife to meet him in London.

Mrs Harrison said: “I went up to London and met him, and a bomb went off, it came too quickly and we didn’t have time to get in a shelter. Ernest put his tin helmet over my head and saved me.”

Her account of the event is on display in the War Museum. Mr Harrison passed away in 1995, but the couple got to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary together.
During the war Mrs Harrison had Spitfire pilots to stay in her home, as Riverview Park was an airport and the airmen needed somewhere nearby to stay.

But it would be a long time before she would get to fly in a plane herself. When she was 90 her son took her to visit one of her grandchildren in France - the first time she had left the country.

Mr Harrison, said: “I looked over at her on the plane and she was just beaming. She loved going to France.”

Mrs Harrison, said: “I stayed there for a week, if I stopped in the street people would ask ‘do you want some help dear?’ It was lovely.”

Mrs Harrison has lived in Gravesend all of her life and her favourite place is down the front.
“My dad used to take me when I was a little girl, down the front to see the boats, by Rosherville. There was a sweet shop where he would buy chocolate creams.”

She also said the key to a long life was to eat all the wrong things. "We had the pick of the cakes when Ernest came home, cream horns, cream slices. They don't make them as they were then."

To celebrate her birthday all Mrs Harrison’s family came round and her grand-daughter baked a cake, with knitting needles and a tiara on. She also had 50 friends come round for a glass of bubbly and a slice of the cake.