Cannock woman celebrating 100th birthday dreams of one day meeting Jack Grealish

Edith Punsheon, who lives in Heath Hayes, celebrated her 100th birthday on June 28 with a surprise party attended by dozens of her friends and family members and was "touched" to have received a card from King Charles III.

Nita Ellis, who is one of Edith's three children, said her mother stayed up until the early hours of the morning celebrating the milestone birthday.

The 73-year-old said: "We had a party on the Saturday with friends and family and it was absolutely packed. It was a surprise party, we told her she was going for a meal – she looked quite overwhelmed.

"I eventually got to bring a cake out and I put the candles in and went to her but she wouldn't blow the candles out because she thought if she did that was the party finished.

"She had been up all weekend watching Glastonbury and partying and then it took her all day to open her cards because there were so many. She's on Facebook – she's like a celebrity, she loves to watch all her likes and her messages.

"She was waiting for the King, she was quite touched with the card, we're going to get it framed for her."

Edith, who is one of five siblings, was born in the Chadsmoor area of Cannock, where she stayed until she joined the Navy in her late teens.

It was there that she met her husband, Charles, with the pair having wed at All Saints' Church in Hockley on D-Day.

Edith, who had three children – Ralph, Nita and David – also has three living grandchildren and one who is deceased, along with five great-grandchildren.

Nita said her mother describes being in the Navy as some of the best days of her life, having had a "hard" upbringing.

She continued: "They both joined up during the war. When she talks about it, she just says it was the best days of her life – she just says it was wonderful.

"She had a hard life, she reared all of the children. Her mum gave birth to a boy and then she died when he was three and my mum being the eldest was the mother I suppose – my grandad insisted on keeping the children together.

"They hadn't got lots of money, but she adored her dad and still talks about him now. Everybody adores her, all her siblings have gone but we have lots of cousins and they just adore her, she's been a good mum."

The 100-year-old has supported Aston Villa all her life, having previously stood in a queue "all day" to get her and her family tickets to watch the team play.

Now, Edith has a list of things she hopes to one day achieve on a "bucket list", which includes going to Glastonbury, completing a wing walk and meeting her favourite football player, Jack Grealish.

Nita continued: "We all used to be season ticket holders and for the occasional game you had to queue up for tickets so we always used to send mum and she'd queue all day to get our tickets to the Wembley games or some special game. To get her down to a game would be like giving her the world.

"But she loves Jack, she has to wait for England games to watch him on the television now so she waits for those games – she loves Villa but it's always Jack, you can see her leaning forward looking for him on the television.

"She has got a bucket list, it used to be she wanted to do a wing walk, but last year she watched Glastonbury until it finished and said 'I want to go', but she had a bad fall in September and she was in hospital for three months – we never thought she'd get through it but she did.

"On her bucket list now is for Jack Grealish to come and she wants and picture with him and she wants to go to one of the games. How I sort that out is beyond me."