A FEISTY great-grandmother has ticked a life-long aim off her to-do list and has driven a tank - at the age of 101.

Hilda Jackson, who is blind in one eye, visited the Tank School in Usk at the weekend where she momentarily drove a FV432 tank.

The former nurse, who has 11 great-grandchildren, has always been fascinated with driving and even went on a five-month car drive around Europe in the 1950s with her visiting relatives from Australia.

She had expressed a desire to drive tanks on previous birthdays. This year, at the grand old age of 101, she would not be deterred.

Despite worries for her health, Margaret Austin - Ms Jackson's daughter said her mother was intent on going, and doing things properly.

Ms Austin, from Abergavenny, said: “I thought it would be great for her to get a chance to sit in the tank. But she told me ‘I’m not going to go all the way there without going into the cockpit’ – she’s quite feisty.

“Only one person can be in it at a time so once she was in the driver seat she asked how to switch it on and the guy said that wouldn’t be the best idea.

“But she turned it on, and she was surprised and pleased because she was afraid that the noise would be too loud for her. But she was fine.”

Then the pensioner had a go at driving the £100,000 tank forward a few metres.

“She was thrilled to bits about it,” her daughter added. “We were there for a couple of hours in all. They were very, very good with her."

Alastair Scott, proprietor of the Tank School, at Little Trostrey near Kemeys , said: "It was a great pleasure and honour to have Hilda visit us last Sunday and get her at the controls of a tank.

"By far our eldest tank driver - the youngest was nine - she won all our hearts and admiration."

Ms Jackson’s fun knows no bounds, either it seems. The elderly daredevil has other plans for her ever-growing wish list with sky-diving seemingly on the agenda.

Her 72-year-old daughter Margaret added: “She noticed they had planes there and then that triggered something in her - she said that she’d love to ‘float out of the sky’ in one. She has a very active mind.”