Mrs Branton and Mrs Allen opened their results live on BBC One

And a pair of twins achieved top grades four years after fleeing the war-torn Middle East and settling in the UK with just a minor grasp of the language.

Also celebrating top grades - and a university place - is a father who lost his business after thugs attacked him, and triplets who achieved four As each.

Overall across the UK, 96.6% of entries passed, with 24.1% awarded A grades.

Betty Allen, 78, opened her results live on BBC One's Breakfast programme along with her daughter, Chris Branton, who lives nearby in Sprotbrough, Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

Disrupted by war

Having completed the UK's only online English A-level course, Mrs Allen achieved a D grade and Mrs Branton a C.

Mrs Allen had passed the 11-plus exam - but the onset of war in 1939 meant she could only attend school part-time.

Shweta and Sahil Khanna achieved five As and one B between them

The mother of three, who has five grandchildren, resumed her studies following the death of husband, Chris, and hopes to go on learning "for some years yet".

"I have always believed old age had nothing to do with the years we live but with attitude of mind," she said.

Twins Sahil and Shweta Khanna, who settled in Radford, Nottingham, with their parents in 2002, achieved five As and a B between them.

The pair, who are off to university, say life is a million miles away from what they experienced in the Middle East.

Shweta, who achieved As in biology, chemistry and maths, plans to study pharmacy at De Montfort University in Leicester.

"It's really, really exciting," she said.

"It has been a lot of hard work."

College helped me overcome my depression Stewart Holland

Former businessman Stewart Holland, 38, from Didsbury, south Manchester, is celebrating a fresh start with a university place, after achieving As in history and geography.

The father-of-two nearly died after a gang attacked him as he was delivering pay packets at the courier company he managed.

A bottle of brandy was smashed over his head, and the gang - who have never been caught - kicked and punched him unconscious.

A shattered skull, bleeding on his brain and a burst ear drum left Mr Holland struggling to walk in a straight line, with a stutter, headaches, exhaustion and depression.

While he was in hospital, his company went bust and his long-term relationship fell apart.

'Self-esteem'

Mr Holland later took access courses at Hopwood Hall college in Rochdale.

"College helped me overcome my depression and get back my confidence and self-esteem," he said.

Mr Holland will start reading for a history degree at Manchester Metropolitan University in September.

Glyn's A-level results mean he can study at Bangor university

Also looking forward to going to university is Glyn Wise.

But the 18-year-old is unaware he has been accepted on a University of Wales course - because he is in the Big Brother house.

Earlier this week Glyn, of Blaenau Ffestiniog, north Wales, told housemates he wanted to study for an education degree at Bangor.

And on Thursday it was revealed he had achieved the necessary A-level grades.

Glyn received an A in art and design and a B in history AS-level but Es in Welsh and English because he missed the exams to go on Big Brother.

Triplets Wikum, Nikini and Madu Jayatunga, from Birmingham, picked up four A grades each.

Nikini, who went to King Edward VI High School (for girls), had taken French, maths, further maths and classical civilisation - a subject in which she came in the top five in the country.

Madu, from King Edward's School (for boys) had taken chemistry, maths, physics and general studies, and his brother biology, chemistry, maths and general studies.

The trio, whose parents are from Sri Lanka, collected their results together.

Triplets Wikum, Nikini and Madu Jayatunga picked up perfect results

Nikini said: "We are all over the moon."

She is going to read French and Spanish at Cambridge, where Madu will be studying natural science.

Wikum will study medicine at Imperial College, London.

Identical twin brothers Dalapo and Tosin Awoyinka also picked up perfect results.

After achieving three As each at the St Angela's and St Bonaventure's Sixth Form Centre in Forest Gate, London, both are going to study economics and management at Oxford University.

Confused classmates

Computer-game fanatic Terence Linnell, 12, is believed to be the youngest candidate to pick up a AS-level on Thursday.

A pupil at Brumby Engineering College, a mixed comprehensive for students up to the age of 16, he will collect his result at John Leggott Sixth Form College, Scunthorpe.

Every week for the past school year Terence missed an English class to attend a two-hour maths tutorial there.

Terence said he had been able to follow most of the AS-level course - but, back at school, his classmates had found his ability with figures harder to understand.

"Sometimes they just ask me easy maths questions, like 99 times 99," he said.

His mother, Hui-Yu, who is originally from China, said she was very proud of her son - a "normal" child with a very good memory, who took after his father, Steven, an oil rig engineer.