A FORMER Edgware hairdresser marked her centenary year with a party at a synagogue on Monday afternoon.

Norma Clifford, of Stone Grove, had a huge celebration at the Edgware and District Reform Synagogue surrounded by her family and friends.

The centenarian still smokes 20 cigarettes a day, and although she is frail, her daughter Susan Cohen, 66, said that she thought the 100th birthday party was “absolutely fantastic”.

She added: “The excitement built up over the week leading up to the party and it was like a surreal dream – my mother said she wouldn't be able to come because she's quite frail.

“But when she got there and she saw the fuss that everyone had made of her – there were balloons and entertainers – she got very emotional.

“People keep on asking me what the secret of her longevity is – and I'd say it was the infusion of love from her family and loved ones.

Born in Wales, Mrs Clifford moved to Edgware to work as a nurse at the London Jewish Hospital before the Second World War – and one of her patients, Izzy, became her husband.

He was being treated at the hospital for heart disease, and the couple married and had three children before he died aged 44 in 1950.

Mrs Clifford then trained as a hairdresser, opening the Coral and David salon in Edgware in the 1950s, where her children also worked to make it a family business.

Mrs Cohen added: “She's the most wonderful person in the world and I'm so proud that she is my mother – this party was her reward from all of us.”