A NUMBER of people in Combe St Nicholas take great interest in the village's history, and they are lucky enough to have on their doorstep a talking history book who has just turned 108!

Doris Hunt, who was born in 1900, has plenty of stories to tell.

She was born in the same year as the Queen Mother, Earl Louis Mountbatten of Burma, actors Spencer Tracy and James Cagney, and jazz legend Louis Armstrong . . . and has outlived them all.

The year of her birth also coincided with the Labour Party's formation in this country, Frank Hornby inventing Meccano, Coca-Cola going on sale in Britain, hamburgers arriving in the USA and the Boxer Rebellion in Peking, which was brought to life in the film 55 Days in Peking starring Charlton Heston, who died earlier this month.

Doris was born in Manchester and was the eldest of four girls, and went to work in the Lancashire cotton mills aged 14 at a time when the knocker-upper' went round the streets at 5am to wake up the workforce.

She went to night school after work and studied shorthand, typing and accounting, eventually securing a better job in an office.

Doris married John Duke Hunt in Canada in 1924, having followed her fiancé there the year before. They had four children, three of whom still live in the USA and Canada with her 14 grandchildren.

The couple returned to England and lived in a number of different places in northern England before arriving in Combe St Nicholas in 1984 with their son, Harry, and his family.

They later moved to The Maltings in Chard.

After Doris' husband died aged 94 she moved back to Combe.

Doris' daughter-in-law, Anne Hunt, said: "She used to play whist most weeks and up to a few weeks ago still walked around the garden several times a day, and keeps in remarkable health considering her age."

Doris has four grandchildren living in this area and four great-grandchildren.