Britain's oldest person Gladys Hooper, who put her long life down to a regular glass of sherry and a good diet, dies at the age of 113
- Great-grandmother Gladys Hooper died at a nursing home where she lived
- The 113-year-old was born in the same year the aeroplane was invented
- Her family had seen her an hour before she died and she seemed 'well'
- Her son, himself 85, said 'she just faded, 113 and a half is a good old age'
- She once witnessed a German zeppelin being shot down and ran the country's first car hire company
Britain's oldest person Gladys Hooper - who was born the same year the aeroplane was invented - has died today at the age of 113.
Her son Derek Hermiston confirmed that his mother, a former concert pianist, had died at the nursing home where she lived in Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
Mr Hermiston, 85, said: 'She passed away, she just faded, 113 and a half is a good old age.
Great-grandmother Gladys Hooper, a former concert pianist, pictured celebrating her 113th birthday at the nursing home in Ryde, Isle of Wight, where she died today
'We saw her this morning, she seemed reasonably well, she was sleeping. We had left her for just about an hour when they called us to tell us she had passed away.'
When she celebrated her last birthday, the great-grandmother said: 'I don't feel very different to when I was 75.' She put her long life down to a good diet and the odd glass of sherry and said it was 'quite something' to be the oldest Briton.
Mrs Hooper is pictured left aged 16, and right aged three. She died aged 113 today
Mrs Hooper broke a Guinness World Record last year when she became the oldest person to undergo a hip replacement operation which was carried out by consultant orthopaedic surgeon Jason Millington at St Mary's Hospital in Newport.
Following the operation, she moved into the Highfield Nursing Home in Ryde from a flat connected to the home of her son Derek Hermiston, 85, where she had lived for 12 years.
Mrs Hooper and her late husband Leslie are pictured above during their wedding on September 2, 1922
Mrs Hooper was widowed in 1988 when her husband, Leslie, who was a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps in the two world wars, died.
Gladys, pictured at 100 years of age, lived for another 13 years
She had another great link to aviation as she was good friends at college with Amy Johnson who became a famous aviatrix.
Born Gladys Nash on January 18 1903, she was brought up in Rottingdean, Brighton, East Sussex, and went on to study at college.
She became a concert pianist in London and played with famous band leaders of the time such as Jack Payne, Debroy Somers and Maurice Winnick.
She also started what is thought to be the first car hire company in the capital and later ran Kingscliff House School, which is now Brighton College, as well as nursed her husband for 13 years.
Her extraordinary experiences over more than a century also included witnessing the downing of a German zeppelin during the First World War.
According to the website Oldest In Britain, the next oldest person in the country is Bessie Camm, who is 112 years old and is from Rotherham.
The Gerontology Research Group had listed Mrs Hooper as the 12th oldest in the world.
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