A LOCAL woman has celebrated spending 70 years as a member of Weston Golf Cub.

Sally Irlam, a widow of golfer George Irlam, first started playing golf when her mother, Ruth Alford, signed her up as a Junior member in 1953. Ruth was a Somerset County golfer - it seemed that a love of the game ran in the family.

Under the tuition of Bernard Spanner, Sally went on to win the Somerset Juniors' Championship and then the Somerset Ladies' Championship. She even had to beat her mother in the semi-final.

Sally later became the lady captain and then the lady president of Weston Golf Club and Somerset County.

Sally said: "I owe a great deal to golf and am honoured to have been a member of such a prestigious club for so long."

Many may know her not as Sally Irlam but as Sally Alford, a well known TV announcer and news reader, firstly with TWW and later with HTV West.