A GREAT grandmother returned to Tortworth Court, where she worked as a land girl during the Second World War, for her 100th birthday.

Joy Peck (nee Birt), who was born in 1920 in Kingswood near Wotton, started her birthday celebrations in the passenger seat of a sports car.

With balloons trailing from the back, Joy and her daughter Jane pulled up at Tortworth in a stylish open top Morgan.

After plans for marking Joy’s big day had to change because of the pandemic, her family chose Tortworth where Joy spent four years as a land girl, out in all weather, hoeing, digging potatoes, and carrying out other horticultural duties.

She remembers the land girls wore rhubarb leaves on their heads to give them some shade when it was really hot.

And she recalls picking snowdrops and making them into small posies with ivy leaves, which were then sent up to Bristol on the train to be sold.

Eighty years later, Joy and her family enjoyed a birthday tea whilst overlooking Tortworth Lake.

This was the spot where, during the war, Joy saw American soldiers testing a camouflaged vehicle.

It turned out to be one of the first, if not the first, amphibious tanks as Tortworth had become a crucial test site during the winter and spring of 1943/44.

Amphibious vehicles to be used in the D-day invasions regularly arrived to be tested for water tightness and the ramp by which they accessed the lake exists to this day.

“Mum loved her afternoon tea at Tortworth Court,” said Joy’s daughter, Jane, "and she loves being driven in the Morgan."

Joy has lived in Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Cambridge before moving to Wells 35 years ago with her late husband John.

Sadly, her son Richard passed away when he was 12. She has a daughter, three grand children and six great grandchildren.