Woman celebrates her 105th birthday and reveals secret to a happy life is 'hard graft'

A woman who has just celebrated her 105th birthday has revealed the secret to a long and happy life.

Winnie Laycock was born in 1913 in the flat above her family’s wet fish shop where she worked her whole life.

The centenarian started at the family-run chippy Quirk’s in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, delivering fish and poultry at just 14 after she left school.

When her father George Quirk died, she ran the shop with her mother Lily and husband Joseph, taking it over full time when her mother became ill.

Her appetite for grafting has carried on since Winnie moved into a care home when she turned 100-years-old, and staff say she is always tidying and cleaning up.

Denise Hobson, an activities co-ordinator at Housteads residential home, where Winnie now lives, said: “Her dad said she had got two good feet and they did her well.

“She has always got her hands in the sink washing up.

“We have tried to stop her.”

Winnie received two telegrams from the Queen congratulating her on her long life.

She celebrated her astonishing birthday on Sunday with a surprise party which Winnie described as a “lovely day”.

“We kept it a secret. “All her family turned up, it was brilliant,” added Denise.

“She’s very sociable. She loves to dance and likes a good sing-song.”

Winnie has always been active, playing netball and going swimming as a pupil at Manor Lane Infants and Junior School.

Winnie married Joseph in 1941 at 28 years old.

She said: “He was a butcher at the shop across the road. He introduced himself one day and that was it really.”

Talking about the family chip shop, she added: “I kept it on during the war, and while I nursed my mother when she was poorly.”

As Joseph was a fire warden in the army, he had to leave the day after the wedding. He later returned and moved in with Winnie and her mother, helping to run the shop.

Her mother bought Joseph a car, and the three of them regularly took trips to the countryside with their Yorkshire terrier.

Winnie remains very close to her cousin Kathleen, who visits her every week.