THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 21

THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME

Here are some tales of "the old folks at home"—of a man who bumped into a queen, the man who has never visited a cinema, and the woman who is going to be one hundred and six (says a writer in an English paper). Hurrying out of a Cowes cakeshop, a young marine accidentally bumped into a plainly-dressed woman. "Beg pardon, m'am," he said. "Granted, my man," was the reply. Up came General Ponsonby, full of alarm and indignation. "You've jostled the Queen!" he said. "Ponsonby, take no notice," the Queen commanded. "It was a; pure accident." All that happened during the "Cowes Week" of 1878. The Queen, of course, was Victoria. The young marine was Andrew Burdett Brown, now aged 83, who celebrates his diamond wedding at Upham, a sleepy Hampshire village. Mr. and Mrs. Brown have just received the congratulations of the King. Recalling the Cowes episode, Mr. Brown stated he was a postman aboard I H.M.S. Hector, the guardship. "Later, when I had to deliver letters to the Queen at Osborne House," he said, "she recognised me and ordered that I should be given lunch and as much beer as I liked."

Mr. Frank Geeling, a crippled New-castle-on-Tyne newsagent, who has just celebrated his 80th birthday, has not been on a railway train for more than 64 years and has only once in his lifetime been in a motor vehicle. He has never visited a cinema, and has only once been to a theatre. He has been a newsagent and stationer in Newcastle for 40 years, and resided in that city for nearly 65 years. One of the most remarkable characters in England today is Mrs. Emma Coate, of North Curry, Somerset—the oldest woman in the West Country— who will celebrate her 106 th birthday shortly. Mrs. Coate still enjoys looking after the flowers in her garden, and reading the newspapers. On fine days she likes to take a walk down the village and chat to her old friends. If people want to live a long life, she says, they should work hard, take plenty of open-air exercise, and drink a glass of beer a day. She once went to London by stage coach, and can remember the great celebrations in the West Country when Queen Victoria was crowned.