Community plans celebration for 100th birthday on Armistice Day

A WOMAN whose middle name is Armistice is celebrating her 100th birthday on the centenary of the end of the First World War.

Hundreds of well-wishers have sent cards to Dilys Armistice Fox after staff at her Salvation Army care home in West Sussex, were concerned that her birthday would go unmarked because she only has two elderly relatives.

Mrs Fox, who grew up in Caerphilly, Wales before moving to London, professed to being overwhelmed. “I didn’t expect any of this,” she said.

Referring to her middle name, she added: “I didn’t take much notice of it, to tell you the truth, until a few years ago when it dawned on me. It’s just a name to me.”

She said the secret to her long life had been independence and honesty.

“I am independent, very independent. I always get up before 6am and I make my own bed, get washed and dressed,” she said.

The greatest changes in society in her lifetime had been television and the creation of the NHS, she added.

Recalling watching the Queen’s coronation in 1953, she said: “Nobody had a television – we had to share it. I think it has changed the world.”

Mrs Fox was a children’s nanny for all of her working life. She married Henry Fox, who volunteered in the RAF during the Second World War and went on to become head gardener on the Windsor Great Park estate.

Her local community is planning to mark her birthday tomorrow by diverting its remembrance parade to her care home in order to sing

Children at a nearby school have set up a club to send birthday cards to elderly residents.