Golf player Gladys has many good memories

Mrs Grindlay, who turned 100 on Sunday, was still gracing the greens at Sand Moor Golf Club in Leeds when she was 90.

Now a resident at Greenways Care Home in Long Itchington, Mrs Grindlay celebrated the milestone with friends and family including her son Neil who has flown in from South Africa to visit.

Neil said: “My mother was a real demon on the golf course and also a real card sharp.”

Mrs Grindlay was born at her parents’ home in Eltham in 1912 and says her father had to rush down the road to fetch a doctor in the middle of the night when she was born.

She was a secretary for some time at Imperial Chemical Industries in the city centre and remembers her commute to work on which she would catch a bus to Waterloo at 8am and pass the Houses of Parliament on her way to the office

Mrs Grindlay met her husband Frank, or Frankie as she called him, while she was on holiday in Bournemouth in 1935.

This is one of her favourite memories.

The couple shared a passion for golf and both captained their respective sections at Sand Moor.

Mrs Grindlay said: “I was very busy and it was very interesting being captain.”

Frank died in 1998 and it was after this Mrs Grindlay moved to Greenways so she could be near her daughter Carol who lives in Marton.

Mrs Grindlay said: “I’ve always got on well with the staff and it is all very nice here.”

The 100-year-old has two children, six grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.

Despite living in Johannesburg, Neil still calls his mother every day.