WORKING AT 97

Evening Star, Issue 21079, 16 April 1932, Page 8

WORKING AT 97

LONG, HEALTHY LIVES " OLDEST INHABITANTS " “If you want to live a long and healthy life, come and live in our Hampshire village of Micheldeverl ” says a resident of the district. Micheldever has a population of about 800, engaged in farming, and they grow good crops. But the boast is that the district has more healthy old people to the acre than any other village in England. Writing recently, a correspondent of the ‘ Daily Express ’ said: — We have been celebrating some of their birthdays this week-end. Mrs Elizabeth Grounsell was ninety-seven on Saturday, and Mr William Bell was ninety-one on Friday, Mrs Grounsell lives alone and does practically all her own housework. “ I’m not bored,” she said, “ because there is always something to do in the house. But I don’t go for the walks as I used to.” Mr Bell is no less active. He dug all his own potatoes last year. “1 didn’t mean to when I started,” 'he said, “ but the work seemed to grow ,on_me, and I just went on until I had finished the lot.” Mr George Foot is a young stripling of only eighty-nine years, and is a little bashful about putting forward his opinions among so many older than he. Every morning ho takes the milk round for his son-in-law, and used to be accompanied by his grandson. But now the grandson uses a bicycle, as he could not keep pace with grandfather! The correspondent adds: We don’t advertise ourselves in Micheldever. Cheltenham we know, and we have heard of Buxton and Harrogate; once the squire went to a place called Aix-les-Bains, although he came back again after three days because it was so full of foreigners! We reckon that 'if the parish council built a casino, changed the name of our village to Michel de Vere, and then put an advertisement in the newspapers, every man who owns his bit of land here would be a millionaire in six months. But then, perhaps, we shouldn’t bo so healthy nor live so long, and so wo’ro just going to keep going along as we are.