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Leeds now home to oldest person in Europe
LEEDS'S Florrie Baldwin has become the oldest living person in Europe at the age of 113.
The Yorkshire Evening Post celebrated with the supercentenarian on her birthday in May, as the oldest living person in the UK.
Now the great-great-grandma, who lived most of her life in Woodhouse, Leeds, has outlived Italian Lucia Lauria, who died on Sunday aged 113, three months and 24 days.
Florrie has lived through 27 elected prime ministers, six monarchs and three centuries. Born in 1896, she has seen the introduction of the teabag in 1904; the Teddy Bear in 1902 and the modern escalator in 1900.
She clearly remembers a quieter world without radios, televisions, computers or mobile phones.
In 1919, just after the First World War, she married painter and decorator Cliff Baldwin. He died in 1973 and Florrie lived alone until the age of 105 – even still putting up curtains and cleaning her own windows.
She worked as a clerk for engineering firm George Bray and Co for 50 years. Florrie has one daughter, two grandchildren, six great grandchildren and five great great grandchildren.
She now lives at the Radcliffe Gardens Nursing Home in Pudsey where she remains in remarkable good physical health and does not take any regular medication.
Her daughter Maisie Worsnop, 88, told the YEP previously: "It's absolutely marvellous. She's very, very healthy. She's no aches and pains and doesn't take any tablets. She just gets very tired quickly."
Mrs Worsnop puts her mum's longevity down to not smoking or drinking and working hard.
Grandson David Worsnop, 62, also thinks her strength of mind has helped. "She is a very quiet person but she is very strong-willed and I think that's what's carried her through, " he said. She worked till she was 75, full-time."
His brother Marshall, 61, added: "They actually asked her to leave as they couldn't legally employ her anymore. She's lived through 27 elected prime ministers, six monarchs and three centuries."
Florrie became the oldest person in the UK in 2007.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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