A 104-year-old woman is selling her childhood home - after buying it for £200 and living there for 102 years. Nancy ‘Joan’ Gifford is finally putting her three-bedroom terraced house on the market after her family bought the property in 1921 for just £200.
Nancy lived in the home throughout WWII, the invention of the television and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt. But she is finally ready to say goodbye as she turns 104 today (March 21).
The property has made quite the improvement in market value, with it having a £169,950 price tag today. It means the property in Street in Somerset is worth almost 850 times more than it was when originally bought.
Unfortunately, declining health means Nancy is moving out to the nearby nearby St Benedict’s Nursing Home in Glastonbury after more than a century living in the same house. Remembering his childhood at the house, Mrs Gifford’s son John said: “When I was a youngster, there were so many lovely families that lived along the road, and we all knew each other.
"The times we had as children were fantastic; going across the fields, jumping over ditches, bird nesting, and swimming in the rivers, so many things children don’t do these days. Back in the day most children our age knew everybody, and we all had an open house, and it was fine to leave your door on the latch. We were all poor, but everyone was happy.”
When Nancy moved in as a two-year-old with her parents, the kitchen, toilet and wash area was open to the elements, while a tin bath hung on the wall outside. That area has since been covered over and a new kitchen installed alongside an extension for the family bathroom, but much of the property remains the same, except for a lick of paint in the early 2000s.
Growing up in Street, Nancy went to the Convent School in Glastonbury where she was taught by nuns, and met her future husband, Bert, in the mid-1930s while walking with her friends between Street and Glastonbury. Bert was among a group of friends on Wearyall Hill, who had whistled at Nancy and her friends passing by to attract her attention – an encounter that later blossomed into a marriage.
During their time at the end-terrace family home, Nancy and her late husband married at the start of World War II in 1939 before Bert was sent to Scarborough to train as a radio operator in preparation for the Battle of Anzio in Italy. But he was never far from his family, as Nancy would spend most weekends taking the long journey from the now closed Glastonbury Train Station to the north east coast to visit her husband.
During the war years, the family took in Sylvia, an evacuee from London, who grew up with Nancy, and to this day they still remain in contact. The couple later had two children, their daughter Mary (born in 1949) and her brother John (born in 1943), who is now 79 years old and still lives with his wife Sue.
After returning from the war, Bert spent 42 years working at the Clark’s Factory in Street as a heel pairer, while Nancy was a stitcher for the world famous shoe maker. After having their two children, she took on part time work in a nearby pub and cake shop, before later working in the closing room at the Morland’s Sheepskin Factory in Glastonbury.
Nancy's home at 1 The Mead, Street in Somerset, was built in 1882 and originally featured a communal well for the entire road. Jack Bartram, the manager of Holland and Odam in Street, said: “Buying and selling houses is the day job for us, but every so often you stumble across a wonderful story, and Mrs Gifford’s is one of those.
“There aren’t many who live to the great age of 104, let alone have lived in the same house for 102 years. That house must hold so many lovely memories for Mrs Gifford and her family, but now, after more than a century, it’s time for another family to make some memories.”
Nancy's house is on the market with Somerset estate agent Holland and Odam.
