Edna Bateman: "Hard work keeps you going" says Rotherham grandmother celebrating 109th birthday
She may have turned 109 this week, but if Edna Bateman had her way, she would clean her own windows and follow it up with a mile-long walk.
“Hard work keeps you going,” said the mother-of-three, who proudly boasts how in demand she was as a cleaner back in the day, as well as her days in the munitions factory during WWII.
“The munitions factory was fun! We had bingo,” she explained.
“There’s nothing worse than poor work.
“But you’ve got to take a day for yourself, put your foot down and say I’m having a rest. There’s no place like home.”
The sprightly lifelong Rotherham girl celebrated her 109th birthday on October 6 with family and friends at Treeton Grange Residential Home, where staff have to fight to keep her from cleaning it from top to bottom.
“They came to do the windows, and I said, ‘don’t pay anyone to do that, let me do it’.
“I’ve asked for a tin of polish so I can do my dressing table.
“When I was 103-104, I used to get out for a mile’s walk every day.
“I used to knit for years but my fingers don’t work like they used to - I might get some of the big needles and try with those.
“What do I do to relax? Close my eyes,” she laughs.
It was this fiercely independent spirit that saw Edna living in her own home and holding down a job at Rotherham Hospice’s Browning Road charity shop until she was an astonishing 107 years old.
The only girl of three brothers, Edna was born in Maltby in 1916. She left Maltby Hall School at 14 to work on a local farm, before taking a job in the kitchens at Maltby Grammar School.
She met her husband, Willis, in 1938 - but soon after came the day he was spirited away to the war and didn’t come back for three years.
Edna said: “I was on my way to Rotherham pictures when this telegram came saying ‘report to Sheffield.’
“I saw him get on a bus and that was the last time I saw him for three years.
“When he came back on leave in 1942, the first thing he did was take my hand, stick this on my finger,” she says, pointing to her gold wedding ring, “and he said, ‘good fit.’”
“He had picked it up in Gibraltar and carried it in his pocket every day for two years.”
The band has not left Edna’s finger in 83 years.
The couple moved to Wickersly in 1946, where Edna would live until 2023, with Willis becoming a miner while Edna was “very proud” of her work cleaning Wickersley Surgery.
They had three girls and, later, six granddaughters.
“’Another girl’, we used to joke,” said Edna.
Willis sadly died 28 years ago, and it was his passing that inspired Edna to take on voluntary work.
When asked how the world has changed in her extraordinarily long lifetime, Edna soberly said: “I think I used to think it had changed for the better, but now I think it’s changed for the worse.
“I think people used to look after themselves and help people if they were wanting, but now they shove them away. They check in and ask ‘are you okay’ but then they move on.”
Edna says she doesn’t have any tips for living as long as she has - except to “enjoy yourself and keep yourself busy.”
“The whiskey might have something to do with it,” she admits.
“I once heard a doctor tell a girl living next door to have a tablespoon of whiskey every morning. There, you see, whiskey’s good for you.”