A Chorleywood resident has recently celebrated her 100th birthday.
Flora Richards, who lives in Chorleywood Beaumont Care Home, was born in Brighton on November 25, 1923, the youngest of seven children. Flora’s father was a band conductor in the army while Flora’s mother juggled the challenges of raising seven children and earning enough money to support them.
Flora said: “She brought us all up to be respectable and polite.”
When she was aged 17, war broke out in Britain and Flora moved to Uxbridge to work in the RAF.
Talking of her time in the RAF, she said: “Sometimes I served as a messenger, while at other times I served food in the sergeant’s mess.”
Flora said that despite the losses and struggles of war, she did enjoy her time in the RAF. She also remembers the difficult times too, such as seeking refuge under the Victoria and Albert Museum in London during an air raid. She also fondly recalls the delight of being given a barrel of beer by the pub opposite her barracks to celebrate the end of the war.
While working in the RAF, Flora met her husband Herbert, who worked in the Middlesex Regiment, rescuing people from bombed buildings. They travelled to work on the same train, and, one day, Herbert plucked up the courage to ask Flora whether he might take her out the following day.
The date was clearly a roaring success: Flora and Herbert were wed in 1948 and remained happily married until his death in 1986. They had a daughter together, Linda, who now lives in Chalfont St Giles, and spent the early years of their marriage in Shepherd’s Bush. They moved to South Ruislip in 1963, which is where Flora lived until she moved to Chorleywood four years ago.
Flora, who has two grandchildren and one great-grandson, says that she has lived a “hard life” and that money was often a struggle in her youth.
Her daughter, Linda, credits her extraordinary determination to keep mobile and drinking a glass of port as a nightcap for Flora’s long and healthy life.
0 Comments