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    Three Score Years and Ten
    Three Score Years and Ten
    Three Score Years and Ten
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Three Score Years and Ten

    By Elizabeth Love

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    About this ebook

    This, Elizabeth Love's fifth published book, is a condensed profile of the man she met 14 years ago and a short record of their friendship. As the title suggests it is about growing old and about her as a pensioner. It is also meant as a tribute to her friend.

    It follows in the wake of others which are varied in themes and content and which have earned her satisfying comment and approval. As in all her books it describes the countryside around where she lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Ltd
    Release dateNov 27, 2012
    ISBN9781780690872
    Three Score Years and Ten
    Author

    Elizabeth Love

    Elizabeth Love has found a niche with her imaginative writing about Cumbria with first, a collection of short stories called 'Time Lapse' and second, 'Kaleidoscope, a poetry profile': a comprehensive book of poems describing creatures in the wild as well as domestic, the countryside around where she lives plus personal reflections. This latest publication, set in the picturesque village of Wetheral a few miles out of Carlisle, will hold the reader's interest with its simplicity, drama and romance.

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      Book preview

      Three Score Years and Ten - Elizabeth Love

      Three Score Years and Ten

      Elizabeth Love

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      © Copyright 2012

      Elizabeth Love

      The right of Elizabeth Love to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      All Rights Reserved

      No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book. The information provided herein is provided as is. The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this book and expressly disclaims any implied warranties of marketability or fitness for any particular purpose and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. This book is licensed for your personal reading only. It is not permissible to copy, share or email this book to others. Please respect the copyright of the author.

      ISBN- 9781780690872

      First Published as an e-book in November 2012

      E-Books Publisher

      17 Sedgeway Business Park

      Witchford CB6 2HY

      Prologue

      The 100th Birthday

      My subject is primarily old age and specifically about people I have known and am thinking about. Those who are lucky enough to experience old age (and I mean those over three score years and ten) have found it loathsome, in varying degrees insufferable, and, in general, an abomination. There have been stories, poems, songs and films about it and it inevitably features somewhere, mostly everywhere in our daily lives and in our society.

      It has been well documented and, in particular, I am thinking of a Television play called simply ‘Dad’ in which Richard Briers starred. Another gained an award for Thora Herd in a solo performance about an old woman living on her own, and there was the one about the writer, Iris Murdoch, played by Judy Dench. The most famous of all was the series called 'One Foot in the Grave' starring Richard Wilson and Annette Crosby, but not forgetting Nora Batty and company in ‘Last of the Summer Wine’! There have been many more, of course. With its attendant malfunctions and deficiencies, these are a few of my recollections of when I have rubbed shoulders with old age. It is also a record of my life as an old age pensioner.

      Where these separate little stories are about people I have had the privilege to know, they have all passed away with the exception of, as of now (the 20th December, 2011), the first two. My aunt reached her centenary year a fortnight ago, and we had a celebration of her 100th birthday at the Appleby Manor Hotel. I am told that her day began as normal, with one piece of toast and marmalade and a cup of very hot tea taken without any sugar or milk, as had been her habit all her long and happy life. She could drink it scalding hot and had, what they term, a cast iron stomach. Then she opened the front door for her niece, who had come early to help her to get ready for the party. The clothes she was wearing for her special day were laid out on the bed in the spare room, and had been selected carefully by another niece; an Eastex white blouse, a burgundy classic cardigan and a pair of Eastex trousers in clerical grey, which had needed to be shortened for she was only 5'2" tall. To wear with these, and laid alongside them, were a string of beads that were two toned, facetted, alternating with small glass ones and which complemented the clothes. They were a gift from her niece. Trousers were chosen in preference to a skirt for two reasons; one because, for the last twenty years or so of her life, she had scarcely worn anything else (though she had quality skirts and plenty in her wardrobe), and the other reason was because they looked better with the 'Comfy' shoes she was obliged to wear, on account of a very bad bunion on the joint of her right foot.

      She didn't have to worry about the way she looked that day as it was all taken care of, as had been her welfare in recent years, and that was why she had been able to maintain the lifestyle she wanted and live a comparatively independent life in her own beautiful bungalow. She had been a widow for over thirty years, having lived in the same quarter of the village, five and a half miles from Appleby, since she married sixty-two years ago. When her husband died, she took it upon herself to commission the building of the bungalow on a suitable site, next door to the farmhouse where she had lived and worked. It was a very carefully planned house and garden, well designed and fitted out, and she had lived there in happy retirement all those years. Even to just the week before her hundredth birthday, she had gone out to the Mothers’ Union meeting in the village and had been able to take part in the making of decorative paper flowers for affixing to Christmas gift boxes.

      It was a cold, grey morning with little break in the cloud. There had been a light fall of snow in the area the night before the birthday, and frost during the night had caused the driveway to become a hazardous piece of ice. That is why Lydia, who had driven the three miles from beyond the far end of the village (a journey she made every day), went in to wish the hundred-year-old a happy birthday and came back out again almost immediately. Passing by the bungalow happened to be the farmer who lived just up the road. Joe had seen how the driveway was covered in a thin layer of ice so he offered to fetch a hard brush and give a hand to clear it away. There were a dozen stone steps up to the front door, which were also very slippery and dangerous until swept. The vintage lady could not be allowed to have an untimely accident on that auspicious day.

      Some people have an inborn sense of economy that stays with them till the day they die and so it was with Jane. If you were to ask her why she considered every penny she spent in her hundredth year, she couldn't explain it, and it wasn't that she hadn't unlimited resources. It was a trait that she had always had. The hairdresser in the village was available at anytime but she charged £10 for washing and setting Jane's hair, and that was why she didn't have a regular contract on a weekly basis. She brought with her only a hairdryer, everything else was in the house, including shampoo,

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