IRON DUKE’S DAIRYMAID

Southland Times, Issue 17662, 21 February 1916, Page 7

IRON DUKE’S DAIRYMAID

* HIS ONLI' HIVING SERVANT. REMARKABLE OLE WOMAN. Dairymaid to the Iron Duke of Wellington, and his only living servant, Mrs Charlotte Applin, celebrated her 98th birthday at Heading recently. She is now living in peace, health, and happiness within a stone’s-throw of Strathfieldsaye, the home of the greatest soldier England has ever known. For 22 years, living in a cottage on the estate, she has been a pensioner of the Wellesley family, and there are to be great celebrations should the old lady fight her way through to the century. And her chances are good. Her grandmother lived to 102, and died only then because she had nothing else to do; her father lived well into the nineties, and two of her brothers followed his example. Her mother, however, was comparatively short-lived as she died at 66. Of her four children, her two sons both died as old men, meeting violent deaths, one being murdered in America when he was over 70, and the other drowned in the River Avon, POSSESSED OF ALL FACULTIES. A report called on this wonderful old lady in her picturesque cottage to wish her many happy returns of the day. A few days before the Duchess of Wei -lington called at the cottage on the same mission, for nobody now knows the exact day on which Mrs Applin was born, although the year is certain enough. Mrs Applin is so fully possessed of her faculties that she can read without glasses, can talk interestingly of times past and present, can walk, can dress herself, and still sometimes insists on cooking her own meals! “ I was christened,” she said, ‘‘on February J, ISIS. I have a certificate which says so. But when I was horn I don’t exactly know, hut the day lias always been kept on New Year’s Day. OFTEN HAW THE DUKE. “ I have lived under four Dukes of Wellington, served under three dukes, and under three stewards. " I often saw the Great Duke, mostly on a big horse. He always seemed to me to be riding, not galloping about, but riding, slowly, stately like. Always a very stately gentleman. But lie could smile. He could laugh. "He was a very straightforward gentleman. He went plump at a thing. You knew what he wanted, what he meant when he said a tiling. That’s as 1 remember him. But dairymaids and dukes in those days didn't meet straight face to face very often. ’’ Tt was not till 1 was pensioned that I came to live near the House, and then, of course, I tie great (hike was dead. ] served under the iron Duke altogether seven years, hut have bee-n under the family you understand all the time. ” There is nobody living in this parish wlio was living here when first J came as dairymaid. They've ail gone. But 1 feel well, and feel like living. Want to live? My health's good. X can eat and enjoy my food. I can walk and can talk, and 1 take an interest in things that are going on."