PEMBROKESHIRE’S oldest resident has died peacefully at her nursing home at the age of 107 years and four months.

Ivy Violet Jones passed away at Ridgeway Nursing Home, Llawhaden, on January 16.

Ivy was born in Grays, Essex, in 1908. Her earliest memories were from the First World War, especially the time her father woke her up to show her a Zeppelin coming down in flames.

After school, Ivy trained as a secretary and it was at work that she met her first husband, Gwilym Lloyd Williams, whom she married in 1929.

With Gwilym’s work, the couple went to Spain but they were evacuated back to the UK on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Very soon, Gwilym’s work took them abroad again, this time to Athens, where a near neighbour was an attaché at the German embassy.

Every morning the neighbour would raise the Nazi flag at the front of his house, with his young son wearing his Hitler youth uniform and giving the Nazi salute. Ivy hated this from the start.

Sadly, Gwilym died young, in August 1939. Widowed, Ivy went back to work – for the Auctioneers’ and Estate Agents’ Institute (until 1946) then the Women’s Institute magazine, Home and Country, becoming sub-editor. By 1953, Ivy was private secretary to Dr Michael Balint, a prominent psychoanalyst.

Throughout her early life she was a keen tennis player and went to Wimbledon on numerous occasions, seeing Fred Perry and other pre- and post-war stars play.

In 1960, Ivy moved to Pembrokeshire when she married Tom Jones of Hafod Wen, Crowhill, Haverfordwest, becoming a step-mother and step-grandmother and subsequently a step-great-grandmother and step-great-great-grandmother.

For many years Ivy and Tom worshipped at Ebenezer Chapel and were great supporters of the old County Club in High Street.

Following Tom’s death in 1978, she moved to Spring Gardens and then onto Ridgeway Nursing Home in 2013.

Ivy’s step-grandson David Warren said: “Ivy was a very warm and kind person and while she didn’t have any children of her own, she was wonderful to her step family.

“Ivy took great enjoyment in words and played Scrabble to a very high level until she was 99. She was a very intelligent woman and enjoyed poetry and literature. Even in the week before her death she was reciting works of Wordsworth and Browning.

“She also enjoyed cooking for the family.

David added: “She was mentally alert almost to the end, discussing memories, current affairs and a wide range of subjects with family and friends.”