107 and still going strong! Birthday girl Gladys sent 95 cards
A few weeks earlier, King George V and Queen Mary had celebrated their Coronation at Westminster Abbey.
The huge liner RMS Titanic had just received its formal launch, and was about to be fitted out.
And Gladys Cloke, who has just celebrated her 107th birthday with friends, was born.
Gladys, who moved to Telford from her native Kent in 2012, marked the milestone with a small party at the Chillcott Gardens sheltered accommodation complex in Madeley.
She was joined by some of her large extended family, which includes son Roy, 78, grandchildren Sharon, 46, Jennifer, 42, Kimberley, 30, and Ashley 28. She has also got seven great-grandchildren.
It is believed she is the third oldest person in Shropshire.
Gladys received 95 birthday cards from across the UK – with some coming from as far afield as Dumfries and Somerset – after Kimberley put an appeal on Facebook in an attempt to get 107 'likes'.
Gladys, who lived most of her life in Gravesend, Kent, said there was no secret to a long life.
"I just take each day as it comes," she said.
One of her earliest memories was when she was about six years old, disappearing with her friends to explore an aeroplane which had landed in a field.
"I went up with the girls to have a look, but it scared my mother stiff because she did not know where we were," said Gladys.
"I remember being at school, we had a lot of fun, when I got together with the girls.
"Life was much quieter and slower when I was young, it was not so fast as it is now."
She remembers working in a munitions factory in Kent during the Second World War, and also spent a time in domestic services.
Gladys was married to John for 53 years before his death in 1990, at the age of 75.
"I was never very into boys, apart from the one I married," she joked.
Despite her youthful fascination with aeroplanes, she has never actually flown in one.
"My husband didn't like them, but we went on a lot of holidays to the seaside, we went to places like Torquay."
Gladys was already 101 when she moved to Telford to be close to her family, originally living in Brookside.
She was treated to a party with tea and cakes.
Gladys still has a way to go, though, to catch the oldest living person in the UK. Olive Boar from Felixstowe, who celebrates her 118th birthday in September, is now thought to be the joint oldest living person in Europe.
