A woman born in the year the Henry Ford changed the world forever with his Model T Ford  car has celebrated her 105th birthday.

To mark the occasion, great great grandmother Elizabeth Hughes received her second telegram from the Queen – the first came on her 100th birthday – and held a party with her family and the Mayor and Mayoress of Wrexham.

Now Mrs Hughes says she is determined to get a third telegram from Her Majesty in five years’ time when plans to celebrate her 110^th birthday.

To help her celebrate her big day, more than 70 members of Elizabeth’s family joined her for a special birthday party at Hillbury House Care Home, part of Pendine Park care organisation, where she has lived since September of last year.

The mayor, Cllr Ian Roberts, was extremly pleased he and his wife, Hilary, had been invited – a year after they delivered flowers and a card on her 104th birthday.

He said: “It’s a lovely, very family, occasion and Hilary and I are absolutely thrilled to have the pleasure, once again, of visiting Mrs Hughes and to celebrate another momentous birthday celebration.

“I know Mrs Hughes was born in Wrexham and has lived in the town for most of her life. And of course, many family members also have strong Wrexham connections too although some family members have travelled from as far as London and Essex to be here today.

“And of course it’s always a pleasure to visit Hillbury Care Home which has a delightful and homely atmosphere. I know Mrs Hughes only moved into Hillbury a few months ago but she certainly seems very content and settled.

“She looks exceptionally relaxed and definitely does not look anything like a woman of 105 years of age.”

Mrs Hughes’ daughter, Joan Parry, 78, says her mum was living semi-independently until last September but was a bit unsteady on her feet so it was decided she would be better living in a care home.

She said: “She is still, in many ways, very independent and a very determined lady. She was born, in Wrexham, on the 9^th of February 1908 at an address near to Brooke Street.

“Her maiden name was Jones and her father was a brewer at Sissons Brewery in the town. She was in service at a house in Rock Ferry after finishing her education.

“Mum married my father, William Thomas Hughes, at Wrexham registry Office in 1934 and they had three children, my two brothers, David, 75, and Gwillym, who died aged 73 nine years ago. Dad was a bricklayer by trade.

“Of course the family has expanded and she now has 12 grandchildren, 20 great grandchildren and three great great grandchildren. She’s a very contented lady and still has a very good sense of humour too.”

She added: “She received a telegram from the Queen when she was 100 and was very upset she didn’t get one the following year. However, we were told you get one on your 100^th birthday and then every five years after that.

“She was absolutely determined to get a second card and has already said she intends to be around in five year’s time to get her third telegram! I wouldn’t bet against her making it.”

Mrs Hughes puts her longevity down to only putting up with one man in her life.

She said: “One was enough. When my husband passed away I stayed away from men. They are more trouble than they are worth! I am really pleased to get another telegram from the Queen and I have had a lovely party too with all my family here.

“People say I don’t look as old as I am but I laugh at that really. They ask me how I keep my skin young and I tell them the truth, soap and water and none of that gunk these youngsters smother their faces in nowadays.”

Mrs Hughes added: “I like it in Hillbury Care Home I was just getting a bit unsteady on my feet and had a few falls. Here, I get looked after really well and there is always lots of company although my someone from my family calls in nearly every day.”

Hillbury Manager Cindy Clutton says Mrs Hughes has settled well into life at the home and has already made many friends.

She said: “She is a remarkable lady and it’s a pleasure to have been able to invite all he family her for a special birthday celebration party and buffet.

“I know Mrs Hughes was particularly excited about receiving her second telegram from the Queen and having all her family around her for a party. Family members drop into see her most, if not every day, and are always welcome.

“It’s amazing she was living semi-independently until September of last year when she moved into Hillbury House. Everyone here wishes her well and we all hope we get to help her celebrate many more birthdays in the future.”

A leading independent girls boarding school is top of the class when it comes to energy saving.

It’s not just the playing fields that are green at Howells School, Denbigh – the school is saving itself a fortune in gas and electricity bills thanks to its revolutionary approach to energy use.

It has dramatically reduced its gas and electricity consumption through an investment of £100,00 in advanced heating systems and cutting edge technology.

And with the arrival of the first of a new generation of low voltage computers that can be powered from solar panels, the IT and Science departments at Howells’ are aiming to be carbon neutral by next year.

Management at the 150-year-old school have brought in a raft of measures to reduce their carbon footprint and their bills – gas consumption has been cut by an incredible 40 per cent in 2012 and electricity by a third.

Their latest move has been to introduce individual thermostats – operated remotely from Estates Manager Paul Gibson’s iPhone – on all the heating boilers in the school’s range of buildings.

The state of the art new boilers themselves replaced the banks of gas-fired boiler which used to heat the whole school.

Paul Gibson said: “Those old boilers had been converted to run on gas from solid fuel – at one time the school even employed a stoker to shovel coal into the furnaces.

“We had a bank of three boilers for the school and another three for Stanley House and about five miles of pipes and it meant that to heat the dining hall for the boarders for Sunday lunch we had to heat the whole school, over 80,000 square feet of buildings heated to warm one 3,000 square foot area for an hour.

“So we have spent over £90,000 on upgrading the system with a series of wall-mounted boilers in each building supplying heating and hot water on demand rather than constantly.

“It means that this past financial year we have been able to reduce our gas consumption by almost half while our electricity usage has fallen from 2.05 million kilowatt hours to 1.32 kilowatt hours, a reduction of more than a third.

“The remotely controlled boilers make for big savings and the thermostats themselves have the ability to learn so they know how long it takes to heat a particular building and that it will take longer if the outdoor temperature is low in winter than if it’s higher in summer and so they start up sooner.

“Unfortunately our gas prices have increased 58.3 per cent so only a nine per cent saving has been made in cash terms but had we not made these improvements, then our gas bill would be £43,800 higher this year.

“In fact we will only save £12,500 this year as the gas price has increased dramatically and our electricity bill would be £13,600 higher so we will only save £1,000 this year as the electricity price has also increased dramatically.”

The business school is to be equipped with lightweight new generation computers which can run off solar power, work with USB powered monitors and use a sixth of the power of traditional PCs.

The school is also considering drilling two wells to supply all their water needs with the water to be pumped up using solar power.

Mr Locke added: “Clearly cost management is very important but we also feel there are ethical reasons for trying to reduce our carbon footprint as much as we can. Some energy savings projects are large and some are very small, but all are important. At every stage we try to be more responsible.”

“It would be very difficult to make a building that is 150 years old carbon neutral but we can and do take every measure we can, including the use of high efficiency LED lighting and putting double-glazed safety glass in what were solid doors to increase the natural light and save on electricity.

“We have also replaced the 400 watt external floodlights with 50w LED units for another major energy saving.

“We have made a point of making the new Business School the focus of special attention as we feel that this is an area which business in general is having to focus on now and if we can instil the importance of this sort of management into our students then it will be to their future advantage.

“We do have a very high tech system here at Howells with fibre optic connections to our buildings, an internet phone system, whole-campus wifi, internet protocol security cameras, even have internet TVs in the fitness suite.”