A 105-year-old woman still lives in the house she was born in and has no plans to leave.
Elsie Allcock was born in the two-bed terraced house in Huthwaite, Nottinghamshire, England, in 1918 at the end of World War I, which had only been lived in by one other family.
She bought it with her late husband for £250 ($326) in 1957, and lives there with her son Raymond, 76.
They do not have an internet connection or cell phones, and don’t use email.
Mom-of-two Elsie, who has more than 30 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, always has a duster in her pocket.
She attributes her long life to “not sitting idle.”
Dad-of-four Raymond, who is divorced, moved in 30 years ago when his dad Mark became ill.
He gets up at 5 A.M. to go fishing and takes Elsie a cup of tea before heading out.
She was the youngest child and was just 14 when her mom died, and so Elise stayed at home to look after her elderly dad.
Elsie did cleaning jobs for neighbors and is very houseproud but never had a job.
She was widowed when husband Mark died at 78.
“The secret to a long life is not sitting idle,” Elsie said.
She was a champion at dominoes and has many awards in the house.
In her era, the main street had 30 shops and 11 pubs, but it now has just two shops and two pubs.
Elsie watched the Coronation, and remembers seeing Queen Mary as a child.
She got a card from King Charles, who Raymond referred to as “Charlie.”
“We used to have a billiard hall and a miners’ welfare but they pulled it down and built houses on them,” Elsie said.
“They knocked everything down and built houses on it.”
She challenged the decision to make OAPs pay for the TV license by writing a letter urging against it.
Elsie and Raymond do around 25 jigsaws a year and enjoy tending to pot plants in the garden.
The family celebrated Elsie’s 105th birthday on June 28 with a party with 50 guests.
Raymond, who worked as a bricklayer before retiring, said his mother is “perfect” except for her hearing and she gave up knitting last year due to arthritis.
He said if his mom had a message for the younger generation it would be “don’t sit on your backside and go to work.”
“There aren’t many people who buy a house they were born in,” he said.
“I moved in with her when my father took ill, I moved in to look after her but she looks after me.
“She’s very independent. She says ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about.’
“Until last year she was knitting all the time but she’s got arthritis in her hands.
“She never worked, her mother died when she was 14 and she stayed at home to look after her father who was in his 70s and she cleaned houses for pocket money.
“She’s got bad feet and a bad shoulder and ears but apart from that she’s perfect.
“Our family treat her like a queen.”
Both Raymond and Elsie miss the communal gardens at the end of their street which were turned into a car park.
“There’s no factories anywhere and they closed the last one,” Raymond said.
“There’s nothing for old people.”
Produced in association with SWNS Talker
Edited by Saba Fatima and Asad Ali
