FORMER Newport brewery worker and wartime factory girl has turned 103 years old in a local care home.

Irene Welsher has celebrated turning 103 years old at the Claremont House care home in Malpas, Newport.

She was born in Swansea as Irene Hale on August 5, 1921, and moved to Maesglas Road in Newport after her father secured a job at the docks.

At the breakout of the Second World War in 1939, Ms Welsher was working in a brewery in Newport but was soon turning her attention to bombs rather than beers.

She worked in a munitions factory putting soft metal bands onto explosive shells.

After the war, Ms Welsher married Fred Welsher on June 29, 1946, at St Paul's Church and honeymooned in Blackpool.

Here they are pictured on their wedding day (left, and on their Blackpool honeymoon (right).Here they are pictured on their wedding day (left, and on their Blackpool honeymoon (right). (Image: Irene Welsher)

They remained living on Maesglas Road until moving onto the then newly built Gaer estate in 1953 and had four children - Lynda, Angela, Sylvia and Leslie.

Ms Welsher lived at Claremont House before it became a care home and continues to live a happy life there.