A GREAT-grandmother-of-four who has lived in Walthamstow for more than 50 years celebrates her centenary this week.

Clara Alice Evans, known as Alice, of Church Bank, Teresa Mews, Walthamstow, was born in Southwark on August 30, 1909.

Her son, Geoff Evans, 63, of Mason Way, Waltham Abbey, said: “She did well at Queen's Road School, which is now a teachers' centre.

“She should have finished school at 16, but she left early to take a job making handbags.”

Mrs Evans spent time in Edinburgh during the First World War and also moved with her family to Gibraltar in 1925.

She returned in 1926 and was married in 1933 at All Saints Church, in Capworth Street, Leyton, but was widowed in 1993, six weeks short of her diamond anniversary.

Mr Evans added: “During the Second World War, with my father serving in Burma, Mum carried on working in the clothing industry making ‘utility dresses’.

“After being bombed out of factories in Whitechapel and Tottenham, the business moved to Nottingham away from the bombing.

“These were apparently not happy times as there was some local resistance to the influx from the south.”

After her husband returned from Burma, the family came back to Leyton, where Mr Evans was born, and lived there until 1956, when they moved to Walthamstow.

Still living at home, she travelled to Cornwall to attend granddaughter Victoria's wedding in March this year and is set to enjoy a special birthday party with family in Waltham Abbey.