SHE may be a little too old to rock around the clock – but champion pensioner Annie Rideout still knows how to have a good time.

Annie – Hampshire’s oldest resident – celebrated her 109th birthday in style by sitting down to enjoy a rock concert in her back garden.

Four members of Dog Ruff – all friends of the family – were the headline act at a party attended by about 30 of her relatives.

Fresh from their appearance at Milford Music Festival, Dog Ruff staged a toned down version of their act in honour of Annie’s advancing years – and her neighbours.

Musician Chris Cooke said: “We do a lot private parties for people in their sixties and seventies – but this is the first time we’ve performed for someone of 109.

“We can be a bit raucous – but not today.”

Annie’s daughter, Rosemary Allsopp, added: “She loves all types of music, particularly the big band stuff. She was a great dancer in her youth.”

The party followed a big band concert held at New Milton Memorial Centre last year to celebrate her 108th birthday.

Performers included Todd Miller and the Joe Loss Orchestra, who are close to her heart as she dated one of the former members in her late teens.

The world was a vastly different place when Annie was born in 1907.

King Edward VIII was on the throne, Britain had yet to go through two world wars and a loaf of bread cost less than three old pence.

Annie, the 29th oldest person in the UK, entered the world in the same year as Hollywood stars John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn, plus authors Daphne Du Maurier and Tintin creator Hergé.

The great-great-grandmother from Manor Road, New Milton, has outlived them all.

Born above the family butcher’s shop in Brockenhurst, Annie was still a little girl when her family moved to Lymington, where she attended a school that is now the St Barbe Museum.

After the First World War they relocated to Portland, Dorset, where she met her future husband Gideon.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War the area was often targeted by enemy bombers. Fearing for their children’s safety Annie returned to the New Forest, where she and her family lived with relatives in Tiptoe before moving to New Milton. Gideon died in 1992.

Asked for the secret to her longevity she said: “I have always had something to do. I haven’t had time to be bored.”