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Published:
3:45 PM October 27, 2022
Add their ages together and travel back that far in time and you could ask Henry V about Agincourt, take a prayer with Julian of Norwich and even bounce the infant Joan of Arc on your knee.
Just six residents of Aylsham Manor residential home have lived for an astonishing combined total of 608 years.
Carl Denis, owner/manager of the Norwich Road home, said it was the first time the Manor had ever had six centenarians at one time.
Sheila Peal, 100.
– Credit: Denise Bradley/
Mr Denis, 71, said: “It’s certainly a record for us and it’s a testament to our staff. We look after anyone who’s over 65, but the average age for many years has been about 92.”
They are Joyce Sheppard, 100, Sheila Wintle, 100, Sheila Peal, 100, Madeleine Woodgett, 102, Megan Woods, 103 and Marjorie Halsall, 103.
The Aylsham Manor Care Home.
– Credit: Denise Bradley
Mrs Woods said of her longevity: “As a friend of mine said, we have to blame it on the National Health Service.
“I do to see the funny side of life and that tends to keep you going a lot.”
Two of her three surviving children live nearby in Aylsham.
Madeleine Woodgett, 102, at the Aylsham Manor Care Home.
– Credit: Denise Bradley
Mrs Woods said: “I’m very fortunate to be spending my final years here. If anything I’m a bit spoiled.
“I’ve got more friends here than I had in the last few years of my retirement living on my own.”
Mrs Wintle has lived in Aylsham since 1957, and before that she lived in Wymondham and Brandon with her husband, Kyrle Wintle, who was a teacher and headmaster.
Sheila Wintle, 100.
– Credit: Denise Bradley
She said: “I first saw Aylsham in 1946 and I decided I wanted to move here, and so I did 10 years later.”
Mrs Wintle grew up in rural Hertfordshire, and during the war she worked in a bank and then for the Red Cross.
She said: “I had a wonderful childhood. We lived in the sticks and cycled everywhere.
“I had a Norfolk and a Suffolk grandfather, so I had two feet in the area. The people here are so friendly and they made us feel so welcome.
“I think I’ve been extraordinarily lucky.”
As well as raising her two daughters, Mrs Wintle did various jobs including at town libraries.
She said: “It was great fun and meant I got to know an awful lot of people in Aylsham.”
The home front: Megan Woods remembers the war
Mrs Woods worked in London at the start of the Second World War and then joined the Women’s Land Army, whose members replaced male farm workers when they were called up to serve in the armed forces.
Megan Woods, 103.
– Credit: Denise Bradley
She said: “We lived near London and I used to go up daily on the train. During the Blitz I was working a stone’s throw from St Paul’s Cathedral at an insurance brokers.”
In those days some of the capital’s streets were still paved with wooden blocks – a measure initially introduced to hush the clippety-clop of horse traffic.
Mrs Woods said: “One morning in the Blitz I turned in and the wooden road was actually smouldering. It’s things like that you never forget.”
After the war she married Ron Gosling, who had flown RAF Dakota transport planes in Asia. They were married for 25 years and lived in Sidmouth.
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