A former actress from Isleworth who was born the day Germany declared war on France has celebrated her 100th birthday.
Lily Goodman (nee Leslie) was born on August 3, 1914, in Great Yarmouth. She says her parents could hear the sound of guns the other side of the Channel after Germany invaded Belgium the following day at the outset of the First World War.
Mrs Goodman, who has lived in the same semi-detached house in London Road, Isleworth, since 1959, was one of 13 siblings.
Her parents were only visiting the southern coast when she was born, and she spent the war years in Bristol and southern Wales before moving to Bloomsbury Court, in Holborn, where her father Richard Leslie ran an antiques shop.
Her father later moved to a Georgian town house on Kew Green and opened an antiques shop in Hill Rise, Richmond.
Mrs Goodman helped out at the store after her mother Rebecca died aged just 43, and she says TE Lawrence, whose life was later documented in the film Lawrence of Arabia, was a regular customer. "I had no idea at the time that he was famous but I remember him being beautifully spoken," she said.
She was a keen amateur actress, appearing as the leading lady in several productions by Richmond Drama Club. She also recalls being the only woman on a male cricket team and bowling some 'mean googlies' on Kew Green.
During the Second World War, she worked as a fire watcher and was once called on to extinguish a firebomb which hit her family's antiques warehouse in Rosedale Road, Richmond.
She married dance and jazz musician Harry Goodman in 1944 and their only son Michael was born three years later.
Her husband died in 1998 but she has two surviving younger siblings - her brother Barry and sister Sheila.
She celebrated her birthday on Sunday with friends and relatives, including her son. Asked the secret to her longevity, the tee-totaller said 'no drink'.
