STANDARDS are slipping for Tenbury’s oldest resident!

It can be as late as eight in the morning before Alice Underwood rises from her bed.

But Alice, who was 104 on Monday (January 25) is a remarkable women still living independently on her own.

Her only concession to the passing years is that she has her lunch provided and sandwiches delivered in the afternoon. She use to be always up before 7am and to take a daily walk around town but is not taking life just that bit easier.

Alice, puts her long life down to not smoking or drinking and good fortune.

“My father died at 62 and my mother was 70 when she passed away so I do not come from a family with a history of living very long lives,” she said.

However, if it is not genetic then most people would hope for a slice or whatever it is that enables Alice to look like someone 20 years younger.

It might be the country air as she has lived in south Shropshire and the Teme Valley all her life.

This remarkable woman has lived in the centre of Tenbury for the past 32 years although her early life was spent in Greet where she was born and in Knighton on Teme.

“I put my long and healthy life down to hard work,” said Alice, who went into service as a young woman and has kept busy ever since.

Alice married her soldier husband William in 1942 when he took leave from the army for the ceremony at Boraston Church before returning to serve out the war in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry.

After demobilisation William got a job on the in Knighton on Teme. He died within a year of the couple moving to Tenbury.

Alice has always kept herself fit and was cycling up to Clee until well in her 70’s.

“I have never smoked and do not drink alcohol,” said Alice.

She had three brothers and remembers the end of the First World War which started when she was a baby.

“I can remember how hard it was in the 1930s during the great depression when there was little money and work. We also listened to the announcement of the start of the second world war on the radio,” she told ‘the Advertiser’ when she was 100 in 2012.

Alice was a special guest at the 1941 memorial event in the town in 2011.

She remembers Tenbury as a town that had many more shops and a railway station with a link to Kidderminster.

Alice and her husband did not have any children but she has a close network of family and friends with many of them helping her to celebrate birthdays that are more than just routine.

He niece Gwen Dallow and great-niece Chantell May were amongst the callers on her birthday as was Mark Willis, the Mayor of Tenbury.

Until not too long ago Alice could be seen regularly out and about in Tenbury but now she largely stays at home but relatives and friends make sure life is never lonely or dull.