Single for 105 years

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 8

Single for 105 years

DEBORAH MCPHERSON

Being single for 105 years seems to have agreed with one of Christchurch’s oldest residents, Miss Margaret McKinlay.

The Scottish-born centenarian will celebrate her birthday with friends and staff at the Nurse Maude Hospital today, but says she never expected to live so long. “It’s like living for an eternity.”

The diminutive Miss McKinlay has become something of a celebrity in Christchurch with her previous birthday quests, which have led to adventures in jet-boating and helicopter rides. This year she would like to fly again, although may have to be content with a party at the hospital where she has been since 1979.

Miss McKinlay has never married, although she says she has been “in social contact with some men, but nothing more.” She is reluctant, however, to admit singleness is the secret to longevity, preferring instead to attribute it to faith in God and remaining active. She admits being active has also helped her enjoy good health. She is described by the hospital’s principal nurse, Mrs Karen Harris, as being mentally alert, and physically able, although her eyesight has failed a little in recent years. During a pre-birthday celebration sing-along yesterday, she managed a little jig, while the other patients wished her well. During her long life, Miss McKinlay has seen many changes in society, but says she “can not remember them all today.” Miss McKinlay left Kilmarnock, her home town in Scotland, at the age of 37. She arrived irQNew Zealand six weeks’later by boat, hoping to earn

more money as a woollen worker in the colony, than she was paid in Scotland. “As a woman full of vanity, I thought I could make more money in New Zealand to buy

things, and I did,” she said. Miss McKinlay settled in Kaiapoi with her mother and lived there 55 years, working at the Kaiapoi woollen mills.