Birthday cards boost for 104-year-old ex-Bletchley Park worker

Mrs Mace received more than 200 cards on her birthday following an appeal

A woman who worked at the top secret Bletchley Park codebreaking centre in World War Two has received over 200 cards to mark her 104th birthday following a social media appeal.

Joan Mace worked as a tele-printer operator at the site where Alan Turing cracked the Nazi Enigma code.

Staff at the Cloverleaf Care Home in Lincoln, where Mrs Mace now lives, asked the public to send her 104 cards for her birthday on Monday.

But nearly twice that amount were sent.

Mrs Mace had been left feeling "over the moon" at people's generosity, staff at the home said.

The great-grandmother told the BBC: "It's made me feel important, but I'm not important, I'm just me. It's nice that they care.

"It's really nice, very sweet and very kind.

"I've got all of them on the chest of drawers, on the table, on the wardrobe. I've never had so many."

Mrs Mace said this year's birthday had been "marvellous" and it was "very sweet" so many people had sent cards

Born on 26 June 1919, Mrs Mace was one of 13 children and grew up in a two-bedroom cottage in Essex.

After she turned 21, she joined the RAF.

Mrs Mace said she met her husband, Ron, a driver in the Army, in an air raid shelter while she still lived in Essex.

She said: "We got engaged and I never saw him for a long time. He was in the Army and he was going away a lot and I joined the Air Force."

She went on to work at Bletchley Park, the Buckinghamshire code-breaking centre.

Workers there were responsible for decrypting enemy codes.

Codebreakers at Bletchley Park fed crucial information to Allied forces during World War Two

Having lived through so many decades, Mrs Mace said she did not believe life had become much easier since the war.

"Life is hard work. Children aren't able to get to school properly. People are struggling to feed their families. It seems unfair," she said.

As well as receiving 202 birthday cards from people across the UK and abroad - including one from the King - Mrs Mace also enjoyed a trip to the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln.

She said her birthday this year had been "marvellous".

Staff at Cloverleaf Care Home thanked everyone who sent birthday cards for Mrs Mace following their appeal.