A little of what you fancy does you good (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

A little of what you fancy does you good

AUGUST 6: SURROUNDED by cards and her friends and family, Mabel Goodings celebrates her birthday.

But this isn't any old birthday, as the great-grandmother has just turned 105.

Her son Ken, who lives with her, said: "She always gets a lot of cards. I'm lucky if I get the one.

"You have to sign for the telegram from the Queen, and the postman asked if it was a 100th birthday. He was amazed when I told him it was a 105th."

And the key to a long life? Mabel thinks it's a little bit of what you fancy that does you good.

"A couple of cigarettes and a glass of gin is the key," said Mabel, who used to work in domestic service.

"That and not being afraid of hard work."

But birthdays are not a day for hard work, so Mabel's plans for her special day were to just sit in her chair, relax and enjoy a cuppa.

Mabel was born in a house on Bentham Lane between Purton and Purton Stoke.

She and Ken now share a house in New Road, Purton.

She has four sons Pete, 76, Ken, 73, Les, 65, and Rex, 60 and five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Her husband, Bert, who was a platelayer at the Great Western Railway, died in 1977.