By Margaret Crosby

Last updated at 11:36, Thursday, 14 June 2012

AT school she excelled at running and long jump. Nowadays Florence Parnaby is content to watch athletics or tennis on the TV; she is greatly looking forward to the start of the Olympics.

Title
Author
Copyright

Description

On Sunday Florence turned 105.

Coverage of the Olympic flame’s journey reminds her of the time when she was 93 and a passenger on a plane flying out to Australia to visit family and got the chance to hold the Olympic torch which was also on board, bound for Sydney’s 2000 Olympics. Would she like a hold, they said – of course she would!

While in Australia, Florence had more memorable experiences for a nonagenarian – she steered a speed boat and stroked a huge python as it wrapped itself around her. Still with a great enthusiasm for life, this well-travelled lady has also visited South Africa and most countries in Europe, but on Sunday she quietly celebrated her milestone birthday with a small gathering at Brackenthwaite care home in Whitehaven, where she has lived for the last 10 years. She was also thrilled to receive her second telegram from the Queen.

Sadly, the celebrations were overshadowed by the news of the recent death of her granddaughter, Mary Easterby, five days’ previous.

Formerly of the Loop Road, and High Rogerscales (Cockermouth), Florence was the youngest of five children. She was born in 1907 in the Jericho area but grew up at Greenbank, where dad John William Bertram worked for Henry Taylor, the Queen Street wine and spirit merchant of Greenbank Mansion. The Bertrams lived in Greenbank Lodge.

“We all had our chores to do and weren’t allowed to sit down while mother was working,’’ says Florence, as she looks back wistfully over the past century to her childhood years. “We were not spoilt at all but we were certainly very happy,

“We all went to St Begh’s School and had to walk therefrom Greenbank, whatever the weather. We walked everywhere, there were no buses. If it was heavy rain, I’d go to Dad who would be messing about in the stables ‘Do I have to go to school today?’ I’d ask. He’d say ‘Put your mac on, you’ll be all right’. We were never allowed to miss school!’’

Florence remembers being friends with the Jenkinson children from Demesne Farm, on the St Bees road, where they would go to pick primroses in the spring. And she puts her longevity down to the fact that she always walked and was naturally athletic. She is still quite nimble and well able to walk without assistance or the aid of a frame.

She liked to read but with failing eyesight finds it difficult without her magnifier. “If Dad caught us reading by candlelight, he’d say, ‘Stop that, you’ll damage your eyes.’ And he was proved right, my eyesight’s not so good these days.’’

On finishing her schooldays Florence wanted to go away to train to be a nurse, following in sister Mary’s footsteps. But Dad was reluctant to let her leave the family home until she was 18. So, for a year, Florence worked at the Beehive store in town. And it was there that she was to meet her future husband, the handsome Albert Stanley Parnaby, who hailed from Middlesbrough and at that time was working at the Beehive as a window dresser.

Florence did manage to get into nurse training at Colchester General where she worked for a while before returning to Whitehaven to marry Albert, at St Begh’s Church, in 1929. The couple had four sons: Philip, now deceased, a Carlisle (and Melbourne) GP; Brian, former Colonial Police, Africa; David, retired RAF wing commander; and Roger, who worked in oil and mineral exploration.

In 1939 Albert set up his own furniture and carpet store, Parnaby’s of Lowther Street, which closed in the 1970s. Florence has six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Many of her family live in Australia.

First published at 11:08, Thursday, 14 June 2012
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk