AN OWNER of a nursery who helped set it up 25 years ago has retired.

Janet Willcox was offered the chance of running a nursery which her son attended when the owner moved away.

The mother-of-two had been helping out before and decided to accept the challenge of managing it herself.

She relaunched it and found new equipment, forming Charterhouse Pre-school in Orpington for two to five-year-olds, as well as raising her son Richard, now 29 and her daughter Jenny, 31.

The grandmother-of-one, who finished on July 23, said: "It's been my life. It's not just working with the children, it's the families as well. My team of people I have worked with are brilliant."

The 63 pupils are split between two Orpington sites in Christchurch on Charterhouse Road and at Highway School, Eton Road.

Now a widow, Mrs Willcox intends to spend her retirement looking after her grandchildren.

She has a 15-month grandson Freddie and another grandchild on the way.