AT three years old Joyce Murgatroyd was desperate to be allowed to go to school.

She was a little girl with a big ambition in an age when the most many women could expect was to go into service.

And she succeeded. Not only did she eventually become a teacher, she became a prominent figure in the life of Swindon.

Which was why a group of her friends decided her 100th birthday could not pass without a proper celebration.

They gathered at Rodbourne Cheney Baptist Church on Thursday to help her mark the special day.

Friend Rosalind Doubleday, who helped to organise the party, said: “She is such a public person it could not be ignored.”

She was one of the founders of the Rodbourne Cheney and Moredon library more than 70 years ago, is a stalwart of the Swindon Society, a member of the Rodbourne Cheney Residents Association and started Swindon Wheelers. In fact she was the first girl in the town to have a racing bike with drop handlebars.

“She is quite a mover and shaker,” said Rosalind.

Jill Day, a former member of the Rodbourne Cheney Residents’ Association, said: “She is such a remarkable lady, even in her 90s she was still helping others through Age Concern. She is really well known in this area, thought of as a lovely lady. Over the years she has been brilliant for local organisations, she played such a big role in the residents’ association that she was made an honorary member.”

As a child Joyce was a keen book lover and would read the War Cry to her grandmother who was illiterate. “She can remember when Whitworth Road was just a track and tramps would ask the way to the workhouse.”

As a youngster she would also go in to a house to listen to children’s programmes on a crystal set. Joyce broke her arm badly aged 11 and had to walk with her mother to the medical centre in Milton Road to be treated. When they got there they were told the doctor was not in and they would have to come back. They returned home and then walked back to the hospital the following day. Leaving school she went to college in Victoria Road and trained to become a teacher, working at Gorse Hill, Penhill and Pinehurst before her retirement.

She married Henry shortly before the Second World War and they went off to Hornchurch in Essex when he got a job as an engineer in Dagenham.

They came back when the factory was bombed and he returned to work on the railway. Henry died in 1997.