Shaking hands with royalty at 107; a milkman in his 80s; oldest clubber in town - stories from Wearside.
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00:00 What a generation! What characters! And what wonderful achievements!
00:04 These Wearside people made headlines for being the oldest in their clubs, pubs,
00:10 societies and nightclubs. So let's toast Sunderland's older folk.
00:15 Queenie Bennett was modelling women's wear at the demonstration fair in Joplings in 1961
00:23 when she was 73. Fred Newton was Sunderland's oldest milkman in 1980.
00:30 He was still doing the rounds at 80. Sunderland's oldest resident in 1998 was Dorothy Orvenden.
00:37 She was 107 when she shook hands with Prince Charles.
00:41 Florence Islip was 81 and must have been the Sundernecko's oldest paper girl in 2002.
00:49 She would make sure that copies of the paper were sent to readers around the world.
00:56 There's Ellen De Parker, pictured in 2009 when she was 86. She was photographed reading The Echo
01:05 just as she had done for 80 years. Bill Smith, 91, was a dab hand on the computer in 2009
01:13 and here he is brushing up on his IT skills at Age Concern with the help of tutor John Wills.
01:22 Hats off to Sunderland's oldest clubber, Brian Muir, who was pictured in 2009. He was known as
01:30 The Spectre and died just seven years later when he was 77. But that's just for starters. Tell us
01:37 about your hero We Aside Citizens who found age to be no barrier. Email chris.courtner@nationalworld.com
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