FORMER nurse Bertha Edwards has celebrated her 102nd birthday with her family at her home in Willington.

Mrs Edwards was born and grew up in the town where she paid tuppence to go to school in a private house.

She left her home during the First World War to live with her grandmother, in Whitley Bay, after her father was called up to serve with the Durham Light Infantry Territorials and her mother joined the Queen Alexandra Nursing Corps.

When they returned home, she trained as a nurse at the Helmington Row Fever Hospital, leaving on her marriage to her husband, Phil, in 1928.

During the Second World War she spent four years working at Bishop Auckland General Hospital, when her devotion to duty almost cost her her freedom.

A favourite story in her family is of the night she was arrested as a spy because she had been nursing German prisoners.

She had been doing a late duty at Bishop Auckland General Hospital when soldiers took her into custody from the bus.

They kept her in a police station but she was recognised by some other soldiers and allowed to leave.

After the war, Mrs Edwards supported her husband in his duties as a councillor, did voluntary work and was a member of the Women's Institute and Mother's Union.

She has a son, Harvey, and a daughter, Dorothy Irvine, from Wolsingham, seven grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.