LIFE in the year 2000 is completely unrecognisable to the way things were in 1892.

For most, images of Victorian Britain are provided by textbook or television dramas, but for Hampshire's oldest women the memories are still vivid.

Violet Slarke is today celebrating her 108th birthday and is still active and enjoying life in her third century.

The energetic pensioner has lived at Brackenlea rest home in Shawford, near Winchester, for the last ten years.

She is still an active resident taking part in weekly bingo sessions and whenever a birthday is celebrated at the home she plays Happy Birthday on the piano.

And longevity runs in the family it would appear as her mother and father, who were first cousins, lived to 93 and 98 respectively.

She said: "I got my long life from both sides of the family I think, and I have been a vegetarian for a good number of years which has also helped.

"What a different world it is now. When I see planes going overhead it is still a miracle to me as there were no such things like that when I was a child.

"I can still remember seeing penny-farthings when we went shopping."

Her other memories include celebrating Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897 and seeing the Queen's coffin being carried by a gun carriage after her death in 1901.

Violet keeps herself occupied by hand-stitching her own dresses, a new one for each birthday or special occasion, drawing and writing poems, a number of which have been printed.

She was born in Dorking, Surrey, and after living in Staines, Middlesex, for a while moved near Northamp-ton where she was a teacher of English, music and sewing at schools.

Although being engaged for four years in the 1930s she never married.

Violet moved to Hampshire in 1990 to be close to niece Christine Bridges, 75, who lives in Chandler's Ford.