Katie Cook died hours after her 100th birthday party

A great-grandmother from the Black Country died within hours of celebrating her 100th birthday.

Widow Katie Cook was admitted to hospital just two days before her big day on Monday, but was determined to get home to celebrate.

Doctors discharged her just in time to mark the event with all her family around her and receive her card from the Queen, before winning £100 on a scratchcard she received as a birthday gift. However the former legal secretary died at home at around 5.30am on Tuesday

Mrs Cook, mother of Brian, 63, and Cherry Dobson, 66, grandmother-of-five and great-grandmother of six, had told her family that the secret to her long life was "continuing to have a go at things, together with family and friends, and keeping up interests".

Brian said: "She was determined to get to the party. She made the most of it, as she always did."

Mrs Cook, whose husband, Harry, died three years ago at the age of 98, was born in Walsall as the daughter of an engineer and a teacher, almost half a century before the foundation of the NHS.

She grew up in Walsall but moved around the West Midlands, also living in Bishops Wood, Wolverhampton and Tettenhall. She also lived in Manchester, and 10 years ago moved to Burrowbridge in Somerset.

After leaving school, she became an accomplished amateur actor and singer and worked as a legal secretary in Walsall and Wolverhampton.

She had a love for tennis and it was a meeting at Wednesbury Tennis Club that led her to Harry, to whom she was married for 68 years.

Brian said his mother devoted her life to her family and voluntary service andhelped raise thousands of pounds with the League of Friends for New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.

Mrs Cook, a life-long Wolverhampton Wanderers FC fan, served on the former Cannock Rural District Council, the parochial Church Council and was county president for the Mothers Union. She was also an active member of the Townswomen's Guild, the Women's Institute and National Council of Women.

The funeral is at Stoke St Gregory Church, Somerset, on Monday at 2.30pm.