NEVER KISSED A WOMAN

Evening Star, Issue 21013, 29 January 1932, Page 12

NEVER KISSED A WOMAN

- OLD BACHELORS BOAST MAN OF EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS. / , Eighty-seven and he’s never kissed a woman! That, is the record of Mr Alfred Blythwaite, of Birmingham, who has been described as Britain’s Perfect Bachelor. Mr Blythwaite was recently entertained to tea by a small circle of friends in celebration of his eightyseventh birthday. “There never was a more determined bachelor than I’ve been all my life,” Mr Blythwaite said in an interview. “It’s always been a first principle with me to be independent of women, ever since I was old enough to have principles. “ I taught myself to stitch buttons on my shirts and darn my own socks when I was fourteen. That’s how I’ve managed to get along without women. I live by myself—have done ever since I retired, twenty-three years ago. I do all my own washing and 1 cooking, and I make my own bed. The only time a woman sets foot inside my house is when my sister comes to see me every Christmas.” But Mr Blythwaite has no deeprooted antipathy to women. He insists very strongly on this. On the contrary, he says he rather likes them — at a distance. Always at a distance! “The farther off the better where women are concerned,” said Mr Blythwaite. “That is, if you want the peaceful sort of life that I’ve had. “It’s quite true that I’ve never kissed a woman in my life. I’m proud of the fact. And I’m not likely to give ■vVav to such foolishness now, I’m eighty-seven. I’m healthy, I’m happy. I’ve got money in the bank. I’ve never kissed a woman. That’s why.”