Northamptonshire's oldest person dies aged 108

Alice Roberts was born in Broughton on July 13, 1907, and lived at the Country View Nursing Home in Warkton until her death on Sunday.

She was one of six siblings – sister Rosalind and brothers George, Horace, John and Harold – and lived in Weldon and Corby during her youth.

She left school at the age of 14 to begin working as a live-in servant with a family in Cranford and later for the great-grandfather of former Kettering mayor Christopher Lamb in Warkton.

In 1935, she moved to Canada to be a nanny to twins in Ontario, returning to England 18 months later to train at the Mothers’ Hospital of the Salvation Army in London as a midwife.

She spent the rest of her working life as a midwife, first cycling and then driving all over the county to deliver babies, before retiring at the age of 60.

Alice, who never married, carried on driving until she was 90, and moved into Country View in 2007.

She told the Northants Telegraph when she was 106 that the secret to her long life was ‘not killing herself with pleasure’.

Alice was the 38th oldest person in Britain when she died at the age of 108 years and 195 days, according to the Oldest In Britain website.

The country’s oldest person is listed as Gladys Hooper, who is 113.

Alice’s funeral service will be held at the Edgar Newman Chapel at Kettering Crematorium at 2.15pm on Tuesday, February 9.

Flowers and further enquiries can be made via Co-operative Funeral Care, 92a London Road, Kettering, NN15 7QD.

Alice is survived by her niece Margaret Maber and nephew Brian Roberts.