When Doris Corbin received a card from the Queen, congratulating her on her 100th birthday today, it offered a chance to reflect on the time she met the British monarch.Bermuda’s latest centenarian remembers it well.“I went to Buckingham Palace and stood before her,” Mrs Corbin said, of receiving the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). “The Queen herself pinned on my badge. I had to step back and curtsy. She was very gracious.”The year was 1983, and the MBE was in recognition of her long years of community involvement, through decades of teaching and service to the Girl Guides.Today’s birthday will be celebrated quietly with family, gathered from across Bermuda and North America.“They are going to take me out for a special lunch,” Mrs Corbin said, “and on Saturday we will have a social gathering at the (St Paul AME) church hall.”The African Methodist Church is one of the signature institutions of Mrs Corbin’s long life.She was musical director at St Paul AME, conducted the choir there, and was trained to play on the church’s Casavent organ. Tomorrow, she will join her friends there, in commemoration of her 100 years. Asked for her earliest memory, Mrs Corbin was taken back to her childhood in the North Village neighbourhood, where she was born to William and Dorcas Heyliger in 1911.“I attended the Grace Methodist Church on North Shore,” she said. “I must have been very young. As I sat in the pew, I tried to reach the pew in front of me with my little toes.”She added: “My mother died when I was two, but my father saw to it that I did all these things.”Living on The Glebe Road, Mrs Corbin was also very close to fellow centenarian Vivienne Jones, who turned 100 two weeks ago today.“She was just a stone’s throw away from us,” Mrs Corbin smiled. “Yes, I know her very well.”For 70 years, Mrs Corbin has lived on Cemetery Lane, Pembroke, where she moved shortly after marrying her husband Clarence in 1941.The cedar they planted then now towers in her back yard. The adjoining Belco plant, which she remembers being “terrifically loud” in those early days, is now just a pulsing background noise.Since Mr Corbin’s death last year, his widow spends her days at the house with her son Canterbury, and Maxi, her cat.“She reads, she writes letters like in the old days,” her son said. “And she likes to watch game shows; thinking programmes.”Though she comes from a long-lived family, Mrs Corbin attributes her longevity to staying fit.“I keep up my exercises,” she said. “Before I get out of bed, I do my stretches. Like pedalling a bicycle.“Just movements, to get my circulation going. I have always been involved and kept myself active.”She was part of a group which, in 1932, set up a Bermuda chapter of a US fitness fad from decades ago: Bernarr Macfadden’s “physical culture” programme.Told that the workout appears to have paid off well, Mrs Corbin just laughed.Having taught 41 years at Victor Scott School (then Central School), she believes in “staying involved”, as close friend Edwina Smith can attest.“I call her Aunt Doris,” Mrs Smith said. “She’s a remarkable woman, for the mere fact that she comes out to church like any other, with no caregiver to hold her up.“When Prince William and Kate Middleton got married, she invited me to tea at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess.”Added Mrs Smith: “She’s kept closely involved with the Berkeley Institute’s Educational Society, she’s a member of the Business and Professional Women’s Association, and she meets with a Bible studies group at my house in Devonshire every Tuesday. She stays very active indeed.”Mrs Corbin remembers her first trip off the Island in 1937, to represent the First Excelsior Girl Guides at the coronation of King George VI.She conducted the choir at Bermuda’s National Stadium for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, 40 years later, in 1977.Hearing from the Queen again for her 100th birthday presents Mrs Corbin with a challenge of protocol.“I must call the Governor’s secretary to find out what I should do back,” she said.