Former Army nurse who cared for Dunkirk's wounded celebrates 100th birthday

Ethel Lote, from Aldridge, says she "can't believe" she is 100 years old and added: "I've lived a normal life."

But the great-grandmother has lived anything but a normal existence.

She met her late husband, Albert, at a mortuary and was engaged to him throughout the Second World War.

And she taught yoga well into her 90s until "she could no longer lift her leg over her head," said her son Derek, 67.

Members of Aldridge British Legion, and her neighbours, marked the occasion by turning up at her house with a cake and sung Happy Birthday.

She also received a special letter from the royal family.

Mrs Lote said: "I can't believe it. Last year, when I celebrated my 99th birthday, I thought I would never make it, but here I am.

"I have just about made it. My life has been varied. I have done a lot of different things. But more or less, normal, I have had my babies, I'm a great-grandmother now."

Mrs Lote was born in Walsall Wood.

She left school, aged 14, with the ambition of becoming a nurse like her mother who served in the First World War.

Her career path took Mrs Lote on a journey where she would meet Albert at a make-shift mortuary in Brownhills.

She was invited there by a doctor to gain more medical knowledge and was joined by Albert.

"There was this shed with the mortuary," she said. "Albert was superintendent at St John Ambulance at the time.

"We were stood either side of the body holding candles. We just stood there watching what the doctors were doing.

"We looked across the body at each other and as we looked into each other's eyes, we fell in love."

The pair began dating and Albert proposed to Mrs Lote after seven weeks.

But he got called up to service which meant the pair had to wait five years, until the war finished in 1945, to get married.

Albert worked as a medic with the Royal Navy and was based mostly in Mombasa.

Mrs Lote worked at St Matthew's Hospital, in Burntwood. The psychiatric hospital was also used by the military during the Second World War.

Derek said: "She worked there for the duration of the war. They took a lot of casualties, including in excess of 100 casualties from Dunkirk after Operation Dynamo in 1940."

He added: "She qualified as a yoga teacher before she retired as a dental nurse. She carried on teaching that well into her 90s.

"She said she would always give it up when she could no longer get her foot over the back of her neck."