Tributes have been paid to Nancy Corri, who was Sandwell’s oldest woman before she died on the eve of her 109th birthday.

Nancy, who was born Amelia Ann Haynes, was raised in Smethwick and lived in Windmill Lane until 2009, before she moved to the Dingle Meadow Nursing Home in Golden Crest Drive, Oldbury.

Her niece Shirley Aston today called her a “real lady who never asked for anything in life”.

Mrs Aston, aged 75, added: “She said she lived so long because of hard work and the Smethwick air but I think it was also because she was contented in what she had.

She never moaned and she was lovely. I spent a lot of my childhood with her and she was always a perfect auntie.

“She was ready to go I think though. She had this saying that she wanted to go and join the steady folk, and she meant to join the people in the cemetery.”

Nancy, whose mother Ann died when she was two years old, worked in a factory in the Jewellery Quarter before moving on to W & T Avery Ltd at Soho Foundry in Smethwick, where she worked on the factory floor for 37 years.

She spent much of her early life living at home and caring for father Frank Haynes and step-mother Clara Haynes, before meeting her husband Ernest Corri at Avery’s. They married when Nancy was 52 and since his death in 1974 she had lived alone.

Her favourite singer was Elvis Presley and she was a member of the Jay Seventies, a singing group of elderly ladies who visited clubs and care homes.

She shopped for elderly friends in her spare time, as well as borrowing around 12 books a month from the mobile library.