A FORMER Oxford cleaner who helped knit hundreds of blankets for deprived children across the world has celebrated her 100th birthday.

Louisa Smith marked the centenary with family and friends at her home at Longlands in Blackbird Leys yesterday.

The fifth child of 14, Mrs Smith outlived all her brothers and sisters bar the youngest, Vicky Baker, 93.

Mrs Baker said: “She is very proud of being 100. This home is the key to her long life. The care and attention, love and affection she gets, is brilliant. She moved here and the staff became her friends.

“She has always been a very happy lady.”

Mrs Baker said: “She had a friend and they used to knit hundreds of squares and someone used to come and sew them together to make blankets. They used to make bag fulls and they were sent all over the world.”

Born in Temple Road to Jack and Jane Allen, Mrs Smith married her childhood sweetheart, Len Smith, in the 1930s. He went on to manage the Co-op in Cowley.

They lived in Argyle Street, and Mrs Smith worked as a cleaner at St Hilda’s College in Cowley Place, Oxford, until her retirement.

The couple had one daughter Eileen, who died two years ago, and two grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and two great-great grandchildren.