SHE was born in Hailey, near Witney, 100 years ago today, and has lived and breathed West Oxfordshire all her life.

Irene Millin was a seamstress and her husband Hedley worked in Witney’s world-famous blanket industry.

They met when they were teenagers – she was a delivery girl for the Hailey village butcher, while he worked for the village baker.

Now she lives in a Carterton care home to be near her daughter, Margaret Timms, who lives in Brize Norton.

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Mrs Timms, 72, a retired secretary who also worked in Witney, said: “Her secret is be good and behave yourself.

“She always lived a quiet life.”

Born to parents Daisy and Albert Shirley in 1914, Mrs Millin had two older brothers and one younger.

Mr and Mrs Shirley were Hailey’s village butchers and from a young age she delivered steaks and chops around the village on her bike.

She met her future husband , also a village boy, while on her rounds.

She reluctantly went to secondary school in Witney.

Mrs Timms said: “She didn’t like school, probably because she didn’t like the discipline.”

But she was not undisciplined, and as soon as she left school took an apprenticeship at Witney outfitters Daisy Jennings.

She made clothes for the rest of her working life, later on working from home.

Her daughter said: “She did anything for people in the village; you name it, she made it, including wedding dresses.

“I remember her on the treddle – she was very talented in the sewing line.”

She and Mr Millin married in August 1936 at Hailey church.

When the Second World War broke out three years later, the couple’s jobs were both protected and Mr Millin was not conscripted into the armed forces.

Their first daughter, Janet, was born in 1938, Margaret in 1943 and Christine in 1952.

After the war they moved to Minster Lovell and Mr Millin took a job at a Witney blanket mill.

Apart from holidays, Mr and Mrs Millin left West Oxfordshire only when they retired to Weston-super-Mare in the 1970s.

Mr Millin died in 1991, and Mrs Millin moved back to Oxfordshire two years ago.

As well as three daughters, she now has four granddaughters and four great-granddaughters.

Luckily, Mrs Timms said, her mother liked girls.

Her daughter Janet now lives in Slough and Christine in Abingdon.

Today, Mrs Millin will celebrate her birthday with her whole family, husbands, partners and a few friends at The Homestead in Carterton.

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