Happy 105th Florence Brice! (From This is Hampshire)

Happy 105th Florence Brice!

11:30am Saturday 13th October 2012 in News By Adam Richards

FIVE generations of the same family visited a Pamber Heath care home for a very special birthday celebration.

Florence Brice celebrated her 105th birthday on Friday, October 5.

Surrounded by dozens of custom made cards, Miss Brice said she was “bewildered” by all the fuss being made over her.

She added: “It’s nice that they still care and have come out to see me.”

She was born in Watford in 1907 and moved to Charter Alley in Ramsdell when she was eight-years-old with her older brother Ernest and younger sister Muriel.

After a brief stint caring for her grandmother in Southampton when she left school at 14-years-old, she came back to Basingstoke to work in the cheque printing department of printing firm McCorquodale.

She remained with the company until her retirement in 1967. Miss Brice never married, or had any children, and lived in her family home in Ramsdell until 1996, when she took up residence in Bethany Residential Home, in Pamber Heath.

Deeply religious, Miss Brice is a regular member of Pamber Heath Gospel Hall in Pamber Heath Road. She said “faith and trust in God” is her secret to a long life.

She has eight great-great-great nephews and nieces, many of whom came for a celebratory afternoon tea party at the care home on Saturday.

Her closest relatives, niece Elisabeth Cornick, from Alresford, and nephews John Hall, from Brittany in France, and David Hall, from Alresford, described Miss Brice as an “inspiration”.

“It is a special day for a very special lady,” said 77-year-old John. David, 74, added: “She’s always been very dear to us. She has loved us like children and has made a fuss over us for many years.”

Elisabeth, 66, said: “She’s a wonderful person. She is always so bright and still enjoys her knitting and word search. She really is a lovely lady.”