A DOWNEND great-grandmother who worked on secret messages for the Armed Forces during the D-Day landings has celebrated her 100th birthday.
Iris Jefferies still lives independently in the house in Bromley Heath that she and her late husband David bought in 1961, and is the oldest honorary member of her local ladies’ Probus Club.
Born in Plymouth on March 21, 1925, Iris took a job with the Admiralty aged 18, in 1943, and was sent to Bath to work as a stenographer.
She coded and decoded secret messages for all three services on movements and other preparations for the D-Day landings.
Iris was also involved in coding messages surrounding the operation of the Mulberry Harbour deployed in Arromanches, Normandy, after D-Day to enable the Allied invasion force to unload its supplies.
She met David, who served in the Royal Navy, when they were both on leave before he sailed for the Pacific.
Following the war they married, on March 1 1947, and moved to David’s home town of Bristol.
After initially living in Mangotsfield they moved to Downend in 1961.
Iris and David, who died in 2020, had two daughters, Sandy and Dawn, three grandchildren, David, Mark and Amy, and seven great-grandchildren, who are aged from 14 to 19.
She loved singing and acting with Bromley Heath Townswomen’s Guild, one of many clubs she has been a member of over the years.
Iris celebrated her birthday with a family party hosted by one of her daughters in Downend, followed by an afternoon tea at Cadbury House Hotel in Congresbury the next day.
Granddaughter Amy Matthews said: “She says there’s no secret to getting to 100 other than a lot of ladies in the family have lived to a good old age, so maybe it’s just good genes – and a bit of chocolate every night!”