The matriarch of a Hampshire family was surrounded by four generations of relatives as she celebrated her 106th birthday.

Edith Chambers marked the occasion with a family bash at the Poplars Care Home in Glen Eyre Way, Southampton.

She was born in Southampton and lived in Bevois Valley before moving to London and serving as a nurse during the Second World War.

She met and married husband Joseph, a policeman and then a businessman, and the couple returned to Southampton in the late 1950s.

They settled down in a home in Freemantle and she worked as head cook at the Civic Centre.

Joseph died in 1974, after suffering from a muscle wasting disease.

The pair had one child, and Edith now has four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.

One of her grandchildren, 54-year-old Kevin Chambers from Eastleigh, said: “She’s one in a million.

“She’s vibrant, outgoing and very switched on – she’s just a good nan.

“She’s the head of the family; everyone rallies around her if there’s trouble.”