100th birthday celebrated with a ciggie

2:26am Wednesday 29th August 2007

A pensioner marked her 100th birthday by lighting her 170,000th cigarette from a candle on her birthday cake.

Winnie Langley, from Croydon, started smoking when she was just seven-years-old when the First World War broke out.

Speaking at her 100th birthday party, Winnie told the Daily Mail: "I have smoked ever since infant school and I have never thought about quitting.

"There were not all the health warnings like there are today when I started. It was the done thing."

Winnie, who has outlived a husband Robert and son Donald, who died two years ago aged 72, said smoking helped calm her nerves during the two World Wars.

She has smoked five a day since she started and claims tobacco has never made her ill because she does not inhale.