Alice gets her seventh birthday card from Her Majesty

The autumn of 1915 saw British forces use poison gas for the first time against the Kaiser's troops in the First World War; explorer Ernest Shackleton and his expedition party became stranded after the Antarctic ice pack crushed their ship Endurance; and Albert Einstein presented part of his theory of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

 

It was also in September of that year - on the last day of the month - that a baby girl was born in Poolewe in Wester Ross.

 

Christened Alice, she would eventually move to Lochaber in the 1930s with her husband, Bill, where the couple brought up four children in Inverlochy.

 

During the Second World War she worked in the casting shop at the British Aluminium smelter and went on to have numerous jobs over the years, including KK's grocery store, becoming well known and highly regarded in the local community.

 

Now, more than a century later, Alice Goode has opened the seventh special birthday card she has received from HM The Queen with this latest one celebrating her 106th birthday.

 

A resident of Inverness House Care Home, family and staff laid on a special treat for Alice last Thursday - September 30 - with  cards, presents and an illuminated birthday cake made up of a tower of cup cakes and a specially-made tiara with the numbers 106 on top.

 

The card from the monarch wished Alice a happy and enjoyable birthday, which, being the seventh such card she has received from Her Majesty, will be added to her growing royal birthday card collection.

 

Opening the card, Alice held it aloft and joked: 'She looks just like me, but doesn’t have my tiara!'

 

She went on to open many more cards and presents commenting: 'There’s no room for these by my bedside, but I will be putting the Queen’s card there.'