One of the oldest women in Britain shares key to long life

You might fear the days will start to get boring as you near 100 years old.

But Mary Spiers, from Manchester, is still embracing ‘every day, every minute’ after she turned 106 in August.

She got there she says, by steering clear of men, preferring to live unmarried with her sisters in a house in Cheshire until just a month ago.

Revealing the key to her long life, Mary said: ‘I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I don’t chase men!

‘You just get up and get on with the day. You just live every day, every minute and you don’t realise it’s piling up.

‘I’ve got a sense of humour, and it gets you through some difficult times. It’s not been all happy. It’s been sad in lots of ways.’

Mary did have a boyfriend once, an RAF man she met during the Second World War before he died shortly after, the Manchester Evening News reported.

Instead she has spent time living her own adventures, that have seen her bounce around the country and work a total of 14 jobs across her life.

After a stint in Southampton until she was 18, Mary’s furniture selling dad moved the family back north to Manchester to escape bombing of the port city.

Mary said: ‘I remember the bombs, the incendiary bombs, everywhere shattered. Once you’ve heard one, you never want to hear another one.

‘I’m lucky to be here really. Lots of those boys who fought, a lot of them were only 17. Let’s hope we never have another war.’

From then on she held more than a dozen jobs, as a cleaner, weaver and cinema usher, even working on British war hero General Montgomery’s car while employed at Chrysler.

Does Mary ever wish she married? Maybe, but not really, she suggests, preferring the companionship of her two sisters Ruth and Dorothy, who also lost their boyfriends during the war.

Aside from them, her enduring love has been the Manchester City football team, who’ve bagged all but one of their 34 major honours in her lifetime.

Mary said: ‘No one would have me! But I’m here to tell the tale. I had two lovely sisters, and we were very close. We were what you call a close-knit family.

‘At times it wasn’t easy, there wasn’t much money coming in. But we did everything together.

‘We went away together, we did the housework, the decorating, and the gardening. We didn’t need anyone else, we had each other. We had enough.

‘We just went day by day. Some things you enjoy, some things you detest but you just get on with it and earn a living. But it’s all been interesting. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

‘The family I’ve got left are lovely. I’ve also got some lovely friends here, they couldn’t have been nicer to me. There is a man who moved in the other day who is 104.

‘Where I’m going to end up, I don’t know. I read in the paper some time ago that someone abroad was 117. 117! I thought well I don’t want to live to 117.’

Maybe she will make it that far, by which point she’ll have gathered many more royal cards than the three she does now.

Queen Elizabeth sent her a 100th birthday card in 2018, while a second came from King Charles and Queen Camilla for her 105th last year.

Theirs joined the more than 250 other congratulatory messages sent to Mary after appeal from her Bowerfield House care home for strangers to send her some cards.

‘I’m flabbergasted’, Mary said. ‘I’m mesmerised by it. I’ve heard they have even been sending them from abroad. I can’t take it all in. It’s like a dream. It’s the day of days.’

Even as her eyesight wanes, Mary remains witty, reeling off jokes from her favourite comedian Norman Wisdom, who she once encountered in her life.

One of her favourites is: ‘A boy went to Labour Bureau for a job, the lady said “Yes?” He said “I want to be a comedian?” She said “Are you trying to be funny?”‘

Another is: ‘Why did the butcher sack his apprentice? Because he was always making mi-steaks.’

Her cousin and next of kin, Henry Hesketh, 89, said: ‘She’s been wonderful. As a child she used to do a lot for me. But all my life she’s been there. We’re very proud of her.

‘As a person she’s always got a joke for you every five minutes. You just have to laugh. She’s just a happy person. And I think that’s why she’s still with us because she looks on the bright side the whole time.’

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