MARY Thompson has been looking back on a hectic life as she celebrates her 100th birthday today.

She enjoys the quiet life these days but has been remembering the times when she ran from police during riots against Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts in the 1930s and when her home was wrecked by German bombs in the Second World War.

The centenarian had 17 relatives visiting from as far away as Canada for a party at her daughter-in-law Sue’s house in Wyke Regis at the weekend.

And Mary is having more festivities at her home at Kingsley Court care home in Dorchester Road in Weymouth today.

She moved to Weymouth with her husband John in retirement when their son Roger got a job at the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment on Portland.

And as she reaches 100 she has looked back on moments from her days living in London when she joined the anti-fascist side in the battle of Cable Street in London in 1936.

She said: “The black shirts wanted to march through the East End of London and a lot of my friends and I said: ‘No’. We held hands across the street to stop them as we weren’t going to have them insulting the Jews who lived there.

“We were having trouble with the police but we objected when some people started throwing marbles so the police horses would slip.

“One woman had her head split open so some of the people opened their homes to let us in but at one point we could not get out as there was a ring of police around us.

“I got to a tree and a policeman chased me on horseback but he couldn’t get around the tree as fast as I could run.”

Mary worked as a teacher in Hoxton, close to Liverpool Street, but when war broke out she and her family were evacuated to Lewes in East Sussex before returning to live in London after marrying John.

She said: “We had a shelter in the front room like a wire cage and one day John said: ‘I think we should use it tonight as you never know.’ “And that first night we used it there was a bomb in Worcester Park where we lived in London.

“One man who lived across the road was killed and the front door from the house opposite landed at the top of our stairs.

“Our house was so damaged we had to leave and if we had been in our bedroom and not in the shelter we would’ve been killed.”

She returned to teaching to rack up enough years to qualify for a pension before leaving London. Mary lost both John and Roger to cancer but has enjoyed an active retirement with the Casterbridge Ramblers and the RSPB. She has four grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.

Her daughter Janet described Mary as a ‘fighter’.