The painter Malvina Cheek was 100 years old last Wednesday. Yesterday she lay on a reclining chair while her friends from the neighbourhood went in to see her and to admire the card from the Queen, all of them feeling very moved that they were with someone who was born on 8th July 1915. Here is a 1980s self-portrait: in some ways she does not look so very different now – although she is a good deal paler and thinner.