GOOD genes and doing your own DIY may be the secret to a long life, said Milford Haven's latest centenarian.

Evelyn Laugharne was joined by friends and family as she celebrated her 100th birthday at her home on Tuesday (June 16).

Born in Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, in 1915 , Evelyn came from a fishing family, and was the youngest of three children.

Her father, a minesweeper skipper, died in France during the First World War, and during her early working life Evelyn worked as a beatster mending herring fishing nets, and then in a shoe factory.

She married her first husband Fred Blockwell, a minesweeper skipper from Milford Haven, at the start of the Second World War and they had one daughter, Eve.

Sadly Fred was killed in action in 1942, and Evelyn and her daughter moved to Milford Haven until the war was over.

After a brief period living in Gorleston, the pair returned to Milford Haven in the early 1950s and Evelyn remarried a decade later to William Laugharne, who died in 1983.

Much involved in locals organisations such as Milford Museum in its early days, Milford Ladies Choir, the Townswomen’s Guild, and the Civic Society, this talented needlewoman was also a member of Thornton WI, and an intricate banner she designed for the group was chosen to be part of nationally touring exhibition of WI craft work.

Her lifelong interest in art blossomed during the 1960s when she began to paint and draw extensively, and she exhibited in many Milford and other Pembrokeshire venues into her early 90s.

"Drawing always came naturally to me," she said, adding that her favourite spot used to be the Pill in Milford, where she often painted the wrecked boats that had ended up there after the war.

Asked how she felt about turning 100, Evelyn said it was 'just another birthday', and put her longevity down to 'hard work and doing all my own DIY'.

But good genes seem to have paid their part too; Evelyn's mother was over 100 when died, while her sister lived until 103, and her brother into his late 90s.