A FORMER nurse who dedicated her working life to caring for the sick has celebrated her 100th birthday with a party.

Bessie MacDavitt, who lives at the West Cliff Hall care home in Hythe, has outlived all seven of her brothers and sisters.

She was born at Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire and began her career in the county, training at Scarborough before working at a hospital in Northallerton.

During the Second World War she was based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where she helped treat wounded British and American airmen.

After the war she joined Princess Mary’s RAF Nursing Service. After several UK postings she helped nurse wounded Korean War servicemen who were airlifted from Korea to the UK via Singapore and the Middle East.

At that time flights could take a week to cover the same distance today’s jet aircraft achieve in a day.

After the end of the Korean conflict she emigrated to New Zealand and joined the nation’s air force as a nursing sister. She soon took to the air again, ferrying wounded soldiers from the Malaya emergency to hospitals in England and New Zealand.

Bessie had earlier met up with a young New Zealand air force officer, Jim MacDavitt, whom she eventually married. Jim died of a heart attack in the 1970s and Bessie later returned to England, settling near her younger sister in Holbury in 1987. She has lived at West Cliff Hall since 2011.