AFTER tasting life in three centuries, one of Britain's oldest people has celebrated her 109th birthday in Fleetwood with champagne and a small gathering of family friends.
Queen Victoria was still on the throne and the Boer War was yet to begin when Agnes Brown first saw the light of day on May 15 1899 at 91 Walmsley Street, Fleetwood.
And since then she has lived under six monarchs and seen off 22 Prime Ministers.
A fiercely independent lady, she lived alone at Wesley Court, North Church Street, until just after her last birthday.
Then she began temporary stays at Fleetwood Hall care home in Fleetwood and moved in full time last August.
Mrs Brown, whose maiden name was McGuire, recalls a happy childhood in Fleetwood which had been in existence little more than 50 years when she was born.
She said: “In those days it was only a little place.
“There was only the beach and we used to play on the beach all day.”
She recalls that the new town did not extend much beyond the Strawberry Gardens pub at the east end of what is now Poulton Road.
In 1925 she met her husband Francis, who had also seen action, serving as a stoker in the Royal Navy aboard the cruiser HMS Roxburgh.
They married in 1927 and the couple moved back to Fleetwood and Mr Brown, who died in 1976, became market superintendent.
Among the guests yesterday was her son Dennis, 75, who lives in nearby Larkholme Parade and is a constant visitor.
And the secret of a long life?
She said: “I have always lived an ordinary life. I have never knocked myself about like some of them.
“We were always off to bed a nine o’clock and seven when we were children.”
Probably the only woman in Britain older than Mrs Brown is Minnie Smith, of Sydenham, London, who was 110 in January.
The full article contains 329 words and appears in Blackpool Gazette newspaper.
