YOU need no longer feel guilty about kicking back with that glass of red you have been drinking every night – you might even reach 100 if you carry on.
Violet Ewen, of The Street in Moredon, celebrates her 100th birthday on Monday and puts her longevity down to a glass of wine with her evening meal every day.
The retired nurse had family and friends around her at Blunsdon House Hotel on Saturday for an early celebration of her century.
And how does it feel to hit the milestone? 
“I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s all right if you’re well,” said Violet, who was in high spirits.
When asked for her secret behind a long and healthy life, she put it down to having a routine, 
hobbies to keep you occupied, and the wine at dinner.
“I have done very well,” she said. 
“It’s important you always have something to do and it might have something to do with my glass of wine.”
Grantham-born Violet  said she felt her eyesight was failing a little in her later years, with family also picking up on some increasing deafness, but other than that, she is as strong as ever.
“When you’re young, you don’t think you’re getting older. It’s only when things stop working you think you’re getting older,” she said.
“I used to belong to two clubs and enjoyed my holidays, which is what kept me going and happy.”
She was a keen member of the Young at Heart Club which meets at Haydon Wick Community Centre every Friday for the over-60s.
There were also regular trips to Haydon Wick Club, the area’s working men’s club.
Of those who turned up to share their best wishes at the party, the biggest surprises came from one of her grandsons, who had travelled from New York, and Coun David Renard (Con, Haydon Wick), leader of Swindon Borough Council.
“It’s all been such a surprise. I knew my daughter had phoned the Advertiser, but I had no idea the mayor and the leader of the council would turn up,” she said.
“It’s very, very good, especially with my grandson coming over from America.”
Violet left her Lincolnshire hometown at 16 and went to work as a nanny with a family in Southampton.
When that family moved on she went into nursing and completed her training at Royal South Hants Hospital in Southampton, where she met her husband.
He got a job at the Vickers-Armstrong factory in Swindon in 1940, which moved the pair to Wiltshire, before daughter Mavis was born in 1941 and son Clive in 1942.
Violet has watched her family grow and grow over the decades. 
She now has six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.