A WWII veteran has celebrated her 103rd birthday with a party in Solihull, ‘attended’ by some of Hollywood’s top stars.
Action film fan Joyce Ensell enjoyed a party at Royal Star & Garter to mark her birthday on Friday, 22 November.
Three years earlier, the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) veteran had celebrated her 100th birthday with a surprise video message from Hollywood hunk Jason Statham, and a life-size cardboard cut-out of the star.
She has now added to her collection, with life-size cardboard cut-outs of The Matrix actor Keanu Reeves and Gerard Butler, of 300 fame.
Joyce regularly watches high-octane films from her room at the award-winning Home, which provides loving, compassionate care to veterans and their partners living with disability or dementia. Royal Star & Garter also has Homes in Surbiton and High Wycombe, and the charity has launched new services into the community.
Joyce was born into a mining family in Westerhope, Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1921. She served in the WAAF from 1941 to 1944, reaching the rank of Leading Aircraftwoman, and met her husband Leslie, an RAF electrician, during the war. The couple married in 1943 and later settled in Birmingham, where Joyce worked as a school dinner lady in the 1950s and sixties. She has lived at Royal Star & Garter since 2019.
On her birthday she enjoyed a party with other residents, and chose to tuck into a fish and chips supper.
The Home is welcoming new residents. For more information on this, new services including Lunch Club and Day Care, or to work at Royal Star & Garter in Solihull, go to www.starandgarter.org/solihull
