A century in Portsmouth: Betty's memories at 100

As Portsmouth celebrates 100 years of city status, BBC South speaks to a woman who has lived there all her life and shares her memories of a century of change.

Betty Atkins was born in her grandmother's kitchen in Portsmouth in January 1926.

Three months later, the future Queen Elizabeth II was born on the same day the dockyard town was granted city status.

"I remember my dad bought me a scooter and I used to go out on it," she says.

"And we had a skipping rope and we used to play in the streets.

"There wasn't the traffic in them days, you know what I mean?"

She left school aged 13 at the start of World War Two.

"I hated school and I wasn't a very good scholar," she says.

"In them days if you didn't have much money you left at 14 but I left a year earlier than that."

While most of her friends found work at a corset factory, she went into domestic service with a local family.

"There wasn't a choice, you just did what your family told you. But they were a nice couple and they used to have a good breakfast for me."

Many youngsters were evacuated out of Portsmouth during the Blitz but Betty stayed in the city.

When the bombs fell she used to sneak upstairs instead of going into the shelters.

"When you're young you don't see no sense of fear," she says. "I used to watch the doodlebugs from the bedroom window."

But she was aware of the death toll as a nearby cinema was destroyed.

"I was in the Anderson shelter with my grandmother and we heard a bomb drop. It was the Princes [theatre] and there was a lot of sailors there."

Later, she was old enough to date some of the Allied soldiers.

"Me and my friend went out to dinner with some Yanks and we weren't keen on them and wanted to get rid of them," she recalls.

"So we went to the toilet and there was a window. So we climbed out the window and ran away. After they paid for our dinner!"

She has clear memories of the end of the war.

"We all got down the Guildhall Square and we were doing the hokey cokey and dancing and there was Glenn Miller music. Yeah, it was happy when the war finished."

Much of the city was condemned as slum housing during the 1930s with families moved out to new housing estates in Leigh Park and Paulsgrove.

Betty moved to Paulsgrove in the 1960s with her husband Cyril, where they raised their five children. But she missed the bustle of the city.

"I didn't want to come here and I hated it," Betty says.

"But after a few years you get used to it. I've been here in this house for 60 years now."

Portsmouth has changed hugely since she was a child.

"I don't get to town very much as there's nothing there since they shut all the shops up. It's just flats now."

Betty's husband Cyril died in 1990, just three weeks before she was due to stop work.

He had a heart attack shortly after leaving the house to go for a walk.

"I don't miss him so much now but I did at the time," she says.

"Because one day there are two of you and then the next day it's just one. But it gets easier."

Betty gets out most days to play bingo or drink tea with her friends, She also sees her eight grandchildren.

When she turned 100 in January, her family threw her a surprise party. She also received a letter from the King and Queen.

"Yeah, I'm proud of that," she says. "I can't see it properly but yeah I'm proud of it. Not many people get that do they?"

So what is the secret to her longevity?

"I don't drink and I don't smoke," she replies.

"I smoked from 14 to when I was 28 but I kept getting sore throats. I didn't smoke when I had a sore throat so I thought if I can do without it then, I can do without it, you know what I mean?"