WELL-known Nancy Bartlett, who lived in West Linton for 30 years, has celebrated her 100th birthday.

Family and friends of Nancy Bartlett gathered at St John’s nursing home in Melrose recently, to celebrate her centenary in style.

Nancy lived at Moray Cottage in the village until 2015.

Born in 1917, Nancy has travelled much of the UK, as well as witnessing a vast array of social and technological changes during her lifetime.

Among those who attended the gathering on October 23 was daughter Janet Whipps, who travelled from Driffield in East Yorkshire.

She told us: “Mam has lived all over the place!

“She was born near Dalkeith in Midlothian, but she has always had an association with Peeblesshire.

“Her dad, Matthew Snodgrass, ran Spittal Farm near Carlops and she was always out there helping him when she was a child.

“But it wasn’t all about farming. Mam moved to London to study music.

“She attended the Royal College of Music during World War II, but had to move back to Scotland when the bombing got really bad.

“It was there she met her husband Basil, who was of the Royal Engineers.”

The pair met in Cairnryan near Stranraer where Nancy was working at the time. 

She helped out in the soldiers’ huts before they moved south of the border again.

“My dad was from Southampton, so they moved back down to England in 1945,” said Janet. “And I was born a few years later in Newbury in Berkshire where they were living at the time.”

In 1954, when Janet was three years old, the family moved to Tweeddale to live on a farm.

She added: “We all moved to a farm and lived near Broughton – me, mam, dad and my sister Liz Johnson. I went to school there and in Peebles and mam settled in Peeblesshire.

“My dad sadly died in 1979 and not long after that she moved to West Linton where she spent the next 30 years.

“It was nice to come back up to the Borders for her birthday and great to see all of her friends turn out to celebrate the occasion.”