A NEWPORT woman celebrated her 100th birthday with a visit from her son who lives in Australia.

Alan Hillier and his wife Joy flew from their home in Perth to mark his mother May Hillier’s centenary at a party at Newport’s Ashton Park Care Home, with her many grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.

The mother-of-three to Beryl, 64, Alan, 62 and John, 57, who was born in Sharpness, moved to Newport from London following a brief spell living in the capital at the end of the First World War.

On the outbreak of the Second World War the former seamstress and Sunday school teacher, went to work in a restaurant at Taunton train station where she met her husband Wyndham Hillier, who was on his way back from serving aboard the HMS Starling.

After the war Mr Hillier got a job as a maintenance worker on Newport railway and the pair settled in Ringland where they brought up their family.

Mr Hillier went on to work at Uskmouth Power Station before he died following a battle with cancer in 1974.

Mrs Hillier lived independently until her late 80s before moving the care home where she now lives.