RETIRED teacher Dorothy Walker celebrated her 100th birthday yesterday - by opening the music festival she has supported for almost 80 years.

She rang the bell to open the 96th Wensleydale Tournament of Song in Leyburn, which she has been patron of since 2000.

Mrs Walker moved to Bellerby from Selby when she was 21 to teach in the village primary school

By the time she retired in 1971 she had taught two generations of residents.

She then taught music for eight years at the College of the Assumption, in Richmond.

In Bellerby, she not only taught music to the schoolchildren but organised choirs for the Women's Institute and St John's as well as the Glee Club.

In 2002, she celebrated her 96th birthday at the Friarage Hospital, in Northallerton, but even that didn't stop her attending the tournament to see one of her students.

"I love the tournament - and being with children has kept me young," she said.

She married a local man, Fred Walker, who died a year after their golden wedding anniversary in 1995. Her son, Richard, works in Leyburn and she has two grandchildren.