ONE of Bolton's grand old ladies will not let a spell in hospital spoil her 103rd birthday today.

Minnie Anderson will celebrate her achievement with family and friends at her bedside, after she had a fall earlier this week.

Minnie, of Great Lever, was still in good spirits at the Royal Bolton Hospital and looking forward to reaching the new milestone.

"They come around so fast," she said. Her relatives said her tongue-in-cheek birthday wish was that a nice young man would be in the bed opposite on her ward in hospital.

The last time the BEN featured Minnie's birthday, in 1997 when she turned 100, she said she would be around in the 21st century and she was right.

She has now lived through the reign of six monarchs, seen 21 Prime Ministers come and go and witnessed the Boer conflict, as well as the two world wars.

Minnie, who puts her longevity down to never drinking or smoking and exercising regularly, was born on Clarendon Street, Great Lever.

She attended St Mark's School, in Fletcher Street, and then left at 21 to work in Marsden's Mill.

Her husband Percy, who she married in 1925, died in 1962.

She keeps fit these days by walking her Yorkshire Terrier Mandy.