Scottish woman celebrates 100th birthday and can still recite the alphabet backwards

A Scottish woman who recently celebrated her 100th birthday can still recite the alphabet backwards.

Isa Grant celebrated her 100th with family and friends on January 20, receiving her card from King Charles at Anderson's Care Home in Elgin.

Isa, who is in remarkable health, shared her tips for a long life - citing kindness, honesty, and a teetotal lifestyle as the key to her health.

Isa (bottom centre) with family, friends and well-wishers. | Highland News and Media / SWNS

She went on to prove that her tips have kept her mind sharp by reciting the alphabet backwards with no mistakes.

She was born on January 20 1924, at her parents’ home on Church Street in Lossiemouth.

Her mother, along with two of Isa’s three sisters, died within a short period of time when she was just seven.

Later, her father, a fisherman, passed away, leaving Isa an orphan at the age of 14.

She supported herself by moving in with another family, serving as a nanny to their seven children and also doing washing and cleaning.

Isa recalls: “It was hard work but I didn’t know anything else, so you just get on with it.”

During the Second World War, she began working at the Thunderton in Elgin, which had been temporarily turned from a pub into a billet for servicemen and their families.

She said: “The owners were very kind to me. They paid for me once to go to Glasgow on a holiday.”

Isa met her husband Andrew, a blacksmith in Rothes, through a mutual friend one day while they were travelling on the same bus.

The pair would go on to marry in 1952, choosing a registry office instead of a church because money was tight.

It was in Rothes that their daughters, Norma and Margaret, were born.

Isa’s family and her friends from Rothes joined her to celebrate her birthday.

Other well-wishers included Moray’s MSP Richard Lochhead as well as Sandy Keith, the Elgin councillor, and John Cowe, Moray Council’s civic leader.