CENTENARIAN Anne Baker’s earliest memory is of the end of the First World War when she was four years old.
Mrs Baker was born just before the outbreak of the war, on May 14, 1914.
Her father, Geoffrey Salmond, was a senior commander in the Royal Flying Corps during the conflict, and the family lived in France for a short while.
Mrs Baker said: “I remember the end of the war; I was doing some lessons with my grandfather and the butler came in with a union jack and said ‘the war is over, shall I hang this on the gate post?’”
Due to her father’s work, Mrs Baker also spent time in Egypt and India as a child, but he died before she went on to Oxford University.
It was while at Oxford that she met and fell in love with Valentine Baker, and the couple married at the chapel at Hampton Court Palace.
After their marriage, they went to live in Anglesey shortly before the Second World War broke out.
Mr Baker was in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
His wife accompanied him to various parts of the country for the first part of the war, before he was stationed abroad.
The couple had five children, David, Peter, Christopher, Julian and Rose.
After the war, Mr Baker became a Conservative Party agent in Chiswick.
The couple stayed in Chiswick for about five years before moving to Alverstoke, near Portsmouth, and then to Salisbury.
“I’ve had a very happy life,” said Mrs Baker.
She has written four books about her family history.
Among them was one about her great-grandfather, the explorer Sir Samuel Baker, who discovered one of the significant sources of the River Nile.
The Baker family is currently working with explorer and anthropologist Julian Munroe Fisher.
They aim to establish a trail in the African Bush in honour of Sir Samuel and his wife, Lady Florence Baker.
A fifth book, which hasn’t been published, was produced by Mrs Baker’s daughter recently.
It was produced to be given to friends and family at her birthday party on Sunday.
To celebrate her special day, Mrs Baker also had a family lunch at the White Hart hotel in Salisbury.
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