A former fashion model celebrated her 100th birthday in style with champagne for breakfast and a private performance from an opera singer.
Irene Phyliss Bull, known as Phyl, enjoyed festivities with her family and friends at Castle Troy Residential Home in Cromer Way, Luton, on May 8.
Phyl was a familiar face in her late husband’s chemist shop, Bull’s Pharmacy in Castle Street, where she worked as Leslie Robertson’s Saturday girl until the age of 80.
Daughter Liz Henman said: “Mum really enjoyed her birthday. They had an opera singer who gave a lovely performance, she had a beautiful voice.
“They had a glass of champagne in the morning and we had a birthday lunch.”
Great-grandmother Phyl met her husband Fred on a blind date at Hendon Station and they married on February 20, 1937.
They lived in Luton from about 1953 when Fred had his chemist shop until he retired in 1976.
In the early 1950s Phyl joined the Luton Inner Wheel and remained a member until it disbanded.
Phyl is a member of St John’s Methodist Church in Luton and she moved to Castle Troy Residential home in 2007, where Liz said she is looked after “wonderfully”.
Phyl has two children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.