FOR 99 years, Bridget Pinder and her family have been celebrating her birthday on July 1.

And when her 100th birthday approached, staff at the nursing home where she lives contacted the authorities to make sure she received her telegram from the Queen.

But as officials checked through the records, they discovered her birthday is on July 29.

All her life, she has been blissfully unaware she was celebrating on the wrong day, and her family has no idea how the dates had become confused.

So the party at Westminster Nursing Home in Osbaldwick, York, had to be re-arranged for the correct date, when the telegram duly arrived.

The home's social events co-ordinator, Ian Moorhouse, said further celebrations were now being planned for Mrs Pinder, who worked for many years at York's Terry's chocolate factory, which is due to close next year.

He said she had been at the home for more than three years and was popular.

He said: "She loves singing and has a great sense of humour.

"She said, 'If my mother were still alive, she would go out and get drunk and locked up'."

He said the birthday mix-up was likely to remain a mystery, and said she might want to be like the Queen and have two birthdays each year.