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Sad to hear Florrie Baldwin died yesterday. Ive always thought that living to a good age is a credit to the person, so living to 114 is pretty special. Its so far removed from what most people think is a good age, the mind boggles really.
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there will be another Florie along in a year or two. And they will get more and more common.
Born in 1896 means she was born in the last years of the victorian era, and was 18 when WW1 broke out
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The changes in her lifetime are beyond the imagination. HG Wells had the advantage of writing "The Shape of Things to Come" 37 years later, in 1933, and didn't come near.
JH
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UKs oldest person dies - no problem - there is always another one waiting to replace her! (About 65million at the moment).
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I think its such a shame really as these people are a real link to the past, not some book written by someone who wasnt even alive then.
I spend alot of time listening to my grandmothers stories, such as my grandfather competing in ploughing competitions and how he used to literally buy an old car from a scrap yard and a few weeks later, they had a running car on the road for less than a weeks wages. My nan says it was like a one man A-team building a car from a virtual wreck.
It seems another way of life and I treasure her insight and memories about a genuinely different age.
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My Gran was born in 1880 andIi often think about her childhood and the changes at the time.
The family lived in Cadishead and she would have been a teenager when the Manchester Ship Canal was dug. Imagine playing and exploring the fields and countryside and then, within a few short years, watching ocean going ships passing through those same fields.
SWMBO's Granpa, a similar age, must have marvelled at the first primitive cars and the hectic progress of railway technology and yet lived until 1971, when the family owned a Wolseley 16/60 Farina and Electric and Diesel trains were the norm, with his old steamers gone from the main line.
I suppose it's the same for every generation, I wonder what our 5 yr old G,son will be looking at in 80 yrs time..............not me, for sure !
Ted
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>> UKs oldest person dies - NO PROBLEM - there is always another one waiting to
>> replace her! (About 65million at the moment).
>>
Nice to hear a feeling response.
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but its true. There is always "the oldest person" And what they lived through is beyond our imagination. That was the case before florie and will be the case after florie.
What it does say however, is that we tend to dismiss the elderly and Ignore them. When we do we loose a little bit of history they could have handed down to us. Imagine how much personal and family history gets lost like this.
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A good innings indeed, must have been a fantastic journey all the things the lady must have seen in her lifetime.
And i like talking to the old uns too, our dear lovely neighbour is 90 and as sharp as a pin potters round her garden which she keeps immaculate and still walks down the town to get her shopping...long may she do so too, she gives me some stick...when she's not gallivanting off somewhere on holiday.
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Just doing the maths, if my mum lives to 114, I would be 87 when she died - so id be pretty old myself.
What is often astounding, such as in the case of Jeanne Calment ( if your not familiar, she lived to 122 ) is that these people often outlive their own children and in Jeannes case, her grandson aswell.
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I am 4 years older than my father managed.
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I am now almost 8 years older than dad ever was (I'm only 41).
Trouble is, no male in my family has lived beyond 42 in three generations. It been good. See you all on the other side.....
(Joke - I intend to live to ripe old age - someone has to be the exception that breaks the rule)
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>> UKs oldest person dies - no problem - there is always another one waiting to
>> replace her! (About 65million at the moment).
>>
But not necessarily as old.
"No man is an island, entire unto himself,
The death of each one diminishes me.
So send not to know for whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee."
If I remember it right.
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No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.
John Donne
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UKs oldest person dies - Zero
