A PUBLISHED poet has shared her secret to long life - sausages at breakfast - as she reaches the age of 103.

Valerie Willan, a resident at Ashbourne Court Care Home, in Salisbury Road, will celebrate the milestone on Monday, September 3, with a tea party.

Born to Margaret and Jack Miller, in Yorkshire, Valerie was the youngest of five siblings, with an older sister and three brothers.

The family moved to the south after Valerie lost her dad, aged 49, in a accident as he demonstrated the use of oil in a motorboat.

Valerie went onto meet her husband Eric at a Natwest bank in Bournemouth, but she was not keen on him to start with.

Daughter Margaret said: “Her mum sent her to the bank and it was about to close so my dad refused to serve her. When she got home she told her mum she was never going again but she had to.”

The couple then grew closer at a party and then they wed before moving to Bristol at the start of the Second World War.

Valerie said: “My husband had to go straight away as he volunteered when he was 20-something and when he came back he said he didn’t want any more children.”

The grandmother described that during the war there were bombs landing in her kitchen and in her toilet.

After the war, the couple moved to Bournemouth due to Eric’s job, while Valerie looked after the home.

Over the years she developed a keen interest in gardening and once worked for Hilliers in Winchester.

But Valerie said her favourite plant has always been an orchid as “they don’t answer back”.

As well as gardening Valerie also grew a taste for writing poetry and on several occasions she has been published in anthologies.

Margaret said that her mother has been a keen cook and baker and the pair used to bake for the Women’s Institute until Valerie turned 97.

And turning 103 is a shock to Valerie as at one point she laughed off a comment from her grandson Mike.

She recalls: “My grandson said you are going to live to you are 100 and I said don’t be ridiculous.”

But now she has surpassed that age Valerie puts her longevity down to “give and take” and sausages every morning for breakfast.

“I always say to my grandson you wouldn’t put a car on the road without petrol,” she added.