Great-gran celebrates 100th birthday in house she has lived in for a CENTURY and has no plans to leave
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A great-gran celebrated her 100th birthday in the house she has lived in for the past century.
Elsie Allcock was born in an upstairs bedroom of the two-bed home and has no plans to leave.
She grew up there with her four older siblings and parents, who rented the property. Elsie then bought it in 1960 for £250 with the help of a council loan, following her parents’ deaths.
Recalling the Hall family’s early days at the house in Nottinghamshire, she said: “My mother and father came to live in Huthwaite in 1900 when my sister Emma was two years old.
(Image: SWNS)
(Image: SWNS)
“My father was a coal miner at Blackwell Colliery. My mother was a hard-working woman. She did washing five days a week for us and other people.
“She had no washing machine, just a tub to boil clothes in. It was very hard work.
“My sister Mary and I would take the baskets of washing back to the customers all ironed and ready to wear. All for half a crown; that is two shillings and sixpence.” The mum of two was born in June 1918, towards the end of the First World War.
(Image: SWNS)
(Image: SWNS)
Back then, the house was lit and heated using paraffin oil lamps and candles.
The family had an outdoor toilet in the 12ft x 8ft garden, which is still used to this day.
Elsie, who turned 100 last Thursday, went on: “When I was eight years old in 1926 the coal miners were on strike and the men were off work for weeks, with no money coming in.
“In those days you had to have coal to get hot water. We had to put pennies in the gas meter. Weeks went by. No work. No money. No coal.”
Growing up in the house with a big family also meant space was a challenge. At bedtime Elsie often found herself topping and tailing with her older siblings.
(Image: SWNS)
(Image: SWNS)
She left school aged 14 and stayed at home to look after the family following the death of her mum Eliza in 1932. Her dad Mark died 17 years later.
And apart from a one-month stay in hospital in the 1960s, Elsie has lived in the house ever since, raising her sons there with husband Bill Allcock. The couple were wed for 55 years before Bill died from cancer in 1995.
Their son Raymond, 72, said: “We knew everyone on that street at one time, but now there are not even half a dozen.”
(Image: SWNS)
(Image: SWNS)
But though her old neighbours such as Mrs Tims are no longer there, Elsie is never lonely thanks to her six grandchildren and 36 great-grandchildren. Raymond, a retired builder, added: “She had always been happy here.
“It’s more convenience than anything, why would she want to move?” The house, gradually updated since Elsie’s birth, is now worth an estimated £75,000.