WOMAN’S LONG LIFE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 115, 18 May 1933, Page 8

WOMAN’S LONG LIFE

STAFFORDSHIRE’S “GRANNY.” NEARING 98th. MILESTONE. MEMORIES OF dI’HER DAYS. Although she is bliud aud approaching the 98th. milestone iu her long journey through life, Airs. Lovatt, Staffordshire’s grand old woman, still retains a lively interest in passing events. It was in the recreation-room, of St. Augustine’s Home, Hanley, that a correspondent .of the News of the World, met “Granny” Lovatt and it was touching beyond words to watch her kindly blue eyes searching the visitor’s in a hopeless effort at recognition. Holding him. by the hand, she recalled when sue had to jump into a river because of a bull chasing her through a field. When asked how long ago that was, she replied with perfect matter-of-fact bluntness: “Ninety-one years come August Bank Holiday!” Having recaptured a whiff of her childhood by relating this anecdote,

“Granny” Lovatt then insisted on reciting two poems about a rose and a violet, which she had learned iu the village school at Worcester, where she was bum. All tho “junior girls” of the home —women of 80 and 90 —began to gather round. Iler recitations were a genuine success. Not a word was missed and the artistry or her delivery was a model to many a young actor or actress.

After the poetry, “granny” told a bloodcurdling story of the days of the kidnappers in Worcestershire. “Girls at that time,” she said, “wore pattens. One night a companion of mine was coming home from a church meeting when two men darted out from behind a hedge One of the men pulled her patten off and the other put a plaster over her mouth and she was carried across the dark fields l-o a cave in the hills. “She never came back alive. Neither did the kidnappers, for they were killed by the young farmers and farm servants who hud gone out as a search party.” ‘ ‘ Granny’s ’ ’ tears came quickly w hen she was asked about her love romances. ♦She hud two, she said, and when the first sweetheart she married was taken away, she married the other one. He, in turn, also died, but she hud known happiness with both. Two of her daughters—one aged 75 —are still alive. “Granny” Lovatt has never yet beard the wireless. She still thinks tha* people have been killed by it, and she is determined to have none of it. She has never heard the “talkies” either, and she does not feel that she has missed anything. The angelus bell was ringing for forenoon meditations when granny again took the caller’s hand. She made him promise that, he would visit her again to hear more poetry and more “dreadful” kidnapping stories. Then two of her “(-hums” took an arm each, and. headed by one of the Little Sisters of the Poor, who conduct the home, they passed slowly out of Lite room towards the altar.