Former World War Two ambulance driver Joan Hocquard, who was born during the reign of Edward VII in 1908, passed away yesterday at her home in Poole, Dorset

Britain’s oldest person has died at home aged 112.

Joan Hocquard, who was born during the reign of Edward VII in 1908, passed away yesterday at her home in Poole, Dorset.

Joan drove ambulances in London during World War Two before she and husband Gilbert moved down to the south coast.

They travelled across the continent in a camper van and went on yachting holidays until Gilbert’s death in 1981.

Later that decade, she met widower Kenneth Bedford who was 20 years her junior at the Bournemouth Gramophone Society and they had lived together since in Poole.

Her nephew Paul Reynolds said: “Joan came from quite a well to do family, her mother’s father ran a solicitors’ firm in the city of London, and she was born in a big house in Holland Park.