WWII veteran Marie Scott features in The Daily Express on her 100th birthday

D-Day heroine Marie Scott celebrates her 100th birthday today and says: “I am rather enjoying old age. The last seven or eight years I have had a ball.”

Marie was a 17-year-old Wren during the Allied invasion, relaying coded messages from a bunker to the soldiers storming the beaches of Normandy.

Her courage earned her the Légion d’honneur – France’s highest order of merit – for helping to liberate the country from Nazi occupation and a lifetime of pride.

And in recent years she has been reinvigorated by the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, enjoying regular trips with wartime pals.

Marie said: “I can honestly say it has totally changed my life and over the years has given me so many wonderful experiences.

“I will be forever grateful to them for enriching my life so splendidly.

“It has been transformational. I have become more curious and met people I would have never met.

“The last seven or eight years I have had a ball and old age has almost been a pleasure.”

In the past 18 months alone, she was a guest of honour at the RAC Club in London, marking International Women’s Day in March and organised by the charity.

Marie was among the veterans treated to a day out at Worthing Pier, West Sussex, last July, a month after she made her annual pilgrimage to Normandy for the 81st anniversary of D-Day.

And in May last year she sat beside King Charles and Queen Camilla at Westminster Abbey for a VE-Day service of remembrance.

Today Marie, from New Malden, in South West London, will celebrate her own big day with a fish and chip supper. Her family – including daughters Gillian, 67, and Carolyn, 65, and grandchildren Robert, 35, Bryony, 33, and Madeleine, 28 – are then throwing her a glittering soiree at which she will open her birthday card from the King.

Time has not dimmed Marie or her memories of working as a switchboard operator at Fort Southwick, Portsmouth, the nerve centre monitoring the D-Day invasion fleet.

She previously recalled: “When they gave their responses to me, I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Because what I heard was incessant machine gunfire, the sound of cannons, and bombs dropping.

“I could hear men shouting orders and I could hear men screaming.

“And I suddenly realised that what I was listening to was the actual invasion of the beaches.

“Those men were storming the beaches of Normandy, and I was hearing the accompaniment of war. I’ll never forget that day. Never.

“It was the sound of hell. I remember all those desperately young men that didn’t survive D-Day.

“For a few moments, I was there that day, listening to the hell those young men were in.

“I can’t help but think of them and their families – I often do.”

Marie added: “We felt it was our duty to stand up and serve. Our country was in danger and we rose to the occasion. It really was that simple.”

She continued: “I will never forget the mood on VE Day.

“I have never known so much joy. We never thought the war would end, so it was a relief. It was a justifiable war because the Nazis were evil and that’s why I decided to join – to help the country.”

She has found friendship among her peers on the adventures organised by the Taxi Charity.

It is run by London black cab drivers and has been supporting British servicemen and women since 1948. In 2021 it won the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.

And the charity was there for Marie when she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 2019, taking her and three other veterans – Len Trewin, Don Mason and Alfred Nutbein – to the ceremony near Pegasus Bridge, in Normandy.

Cabbie and charity chairman Colin Mills said: “What makes the Taxi Charity so special is the human connection at its heart. The bonds formed between our volunteer cab drivers and the veterans they support are truly remarkable.

“Friendships grow quickly and sincerely, built on mutual respect and shared time together. Equally powerful are the connections between the veterans themselves – men and women who lived through the same conflict, who understand one another in ways few others can.”