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A grieving daughter has been ordered to pay £3,000 to a nursing home because she did not give a month’s notice of her father’s death. Sue Cann, 54, was told she had incurred the costs because a period of 28 days had to be paid in the event of a resident ‘moving out or passing [...]

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She spent her retirement  helping the homeless after a career at the forefront of education. In return, perhaps she could reasonably have expected to be cared for in her old age. Now, at the age of 93, Phyllis Wallbank fears she will lose her house after being sent a bill from the council for nearly [...]

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The 71 year-old pensioner, believed to be a local, and her grandson were found following a search on land and by RAF helicopter at Holywell village, near Castle Bytham, Lincs. Police believe believe the pair, who police declined to name, may have drowned while feeding ducks on the pond, which is situated on a farm [...]

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Scott Henson is a self-described Texas redneck, white and middle-aged. His granddaughter Ty — the five-year-old daughter of his goddaughter — is black and Mr Henson often finds himself babysitting her. And that pairing has apparently drawn the suspicion of police in Mr Henson’s hometown of Austin, Texas. Twice in three years, he has been [...]

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Mrs Barrett, 28, was taken to the High Court by her aunts and uncles, who claimed that her religious grandmother objected to the young woman’s lifestyle. She had been named in Irish-born Bridget Gabrielle Murray’s will drawn up months before she died aged 87 in July 2010. But the matriarch’s sons, David and John Murray, [...]

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A rare bottle of whisky has sold for £44,000 – around £1,700 a nip. The bottle of Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve was sold at auction in London to an anonymous bidder this weekend. It is the second of 11 bottles to be released to the public. The first sold at Bonhams in Edinburgh in [...]

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As Sting rolls back the years on tour around the country, he has received a timely reminder of his real age. Mandrake can disclose that the 60-year-old rock singer has become a grandfather. His son Joe Sumner is celebrating the birth of his first child, two months after he surprised friends by announcing that he [...]

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The family of a pensioner killed in a hit-and-run crash today asked “What have we done to deserve this?” Retired mechanical engineer Roberto Lopes Da Silva, 70, was crushed by a stolen VW Golf as he stepped from his parked car outside his home in Hayes on Tuesday. Two men fled on foot leaving him [...]

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Two 102-year-old sisters who live in Aberdeenshire have been recognised as the world’s oldest living twins by the Guinness World Records. Edith Ritchie and Evelyn “Evie” Middleton were born in 1909 and reached their latest milestone in November last year. The twins, whose maiden name is Rennie, live together in Bonnyton House care home in [...]

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A Canadian family’s vacation has proved very expensive, after they racked up an $11,000 cellphone bill for watching Netflix. John Gibson, from Weyburn, took his family, including his two grandchildren, Jayden and Sawyer, on a trip to Phoenix, Arizona recently, CBC News reported. He took along his laptop, which was fitted with a wireless connection [...]

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The government wants more divorcing couples to reach agreement on access to their children without resorting to costly and stressful court action to settle custody disputes. In future, separating parents will be encouraged to agree to give children contact with their grandparents when signing up to the arrangements, under the plan. Ministers will stop short [...]

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After more than a day of labour, Baby Finn forced his way into the world: 5lb 11oz, beautiful, healthy and wondrous. Dizzy with pride for my partner and son, I wanted to tell the entire world, one by one. Except, that is, for my own father. He’d made clear his lack of interest in our [...]

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Have you ever been asked to admit to the happiest moment in your life? I think it is supposed to be on your wedding day, or the moment you held your first-born child. It is the sort of question daughters are inclined to ask, and I remember shocking one of mine by suggesting that my [...]

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It’s often said that as we get older, our reactions and thought-processes become much slower. But try saying that to 70-year-old ‘supergran’ Agnes Crystal. The pensioner recently averted disaster when she steered a 12-tonne runaway bus out of the path of an oncoming car. The brave great-grandmother jumped from her seat when the bus began [...]

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Londoners were urged to check on elderly neighbours and friends today as temperatures were predicted to drop to -3C. Forecasters said there is a risk of snow in the capital today and over the next few days, as winter finally arrived. The Met Office warned the freezing conditions could increase “health risks to vulnerable patients” [...]

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A disabled pensioner has been kicked out of his family home by his 25-year-old daughter after getting his blind lover, 22, pregnant. Retired lorry driver Edward Taylor, 65, was told to leave the bungalow he shared with his daughter, Kelly, after beginning his love affair with young girlfriend Emma Gough. The unlikely sweethearts are now [...]

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A £17million village will house dementia sufferers in a fake reality where carers are disguised as gardeners, hairdressers and shop assistants. The community – dubbed Dementiaville – is being designed along the lines of the 1950s-style houses of a neighbouring village near Bern in Switzerland. It will be the first project of its kind in [...]

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Young-at-heart Kathleen Connell celebrated her 100th birthday and shared the secret of her long life – playing on her handheld games console. Instead of knitting or playing bingo, Kathleen – known to all as Kit – spends two hours a day tapping away on her Nintendo DS Lite. Instead of knitting or playing bingo Kathleen [...]

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Prince Harry has said he does not believe the Queen can now carry out her public duties without the Duke of Edinburgh by her side. In an interview to mark her Diamond Jubilee, the prince pays tribute to his 85-year-old grandmother’s stoicism and sense of duty. But he makes it clear that none of her [...]

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Giving his personal reflections on his grandmother in a rare and candid interview to mark her Diamond Jubilee, the Prince raised the sensitive subject of the monarch’s advancing years and her ability to cope with her massive workload as she approaches her 86th birthday. Meanwhile his brother, The Duke of Cambridge, disclosed that the Queen, [...]

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For millions of young people, the Bank of Mum and Dad was the only way to get on to the property ladder. But even that has hit upon hard times – and granny and grandpa have stepped into the breach, a report reveals. It said rising numbers of young people struggling to buy their first [...]

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A woman jumped to her death from a cliff top because she feared she was developing the dementia she had seen take a grip of her late mother. Unable to face becoming a burden on her family, Judith Iles, 60, wrote a suicide note to her husband and son which read: ‘So sorry – I’m [...]

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Peering at the two blue lines on the pregnancy test, Debbie Hughes reached for her reading glasses to check that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Fast approaching her 53rd birthday, she thought she was too old to conceive naturally and, besides, she was on the Pill. It was impossible, she thought, her stomach ‘lurching with [...]

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For millions of young people, the Bank of Mum and Dad was the only way to get on to the property ladder. But even that has hit upon hard times – and granny and grandpa have stepped into the breach, a report reveals. It said rising numbers of young people struggling to buy their first [...]

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When doctors told Margaret Park’s family the 89-year-old was dying, her devoted granddaughter resolutely refused to accept the hospital’s prognosis. Hazel Carter, 41, stayed by her grandmother’s side for two weeks – determined to help her recover. Meanwhile, she kept a moving diary, which gives a shocking insight into how easily old people can be [...]

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The mixed breed dog stayed with Mr Holder, 73, when he fell 40ft down a ravine and blacked out as the waters rose around him. Mr Holder, who had suffered six broken ribs and a head injury, regained consciousness 15 minutes later to find his loyal pet watching him. The 11-year-old dog then left him [...]

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When Georgina Brown was born in the front bedroom of her home, the Titanic had not even set sail. One hundred years on and  Mrs Brown is still going  strong – and still living in the same cottage. The great-grandmother is the fifth generation of her family to own the three-bedroom village property, which they [...]

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At the age of 53, Debbie Hughes imagined the only babies she would be looking after would be her granddaughters. Instead, despite taking the contraceptive Pill, she has become one of Britain’s oldest ever naturally conceiving mothers – giving birth to a healthy baby boy named Kyle. Miss Hughes took a pregnancy test after her [...]

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Looking out of the kitchen window, Susan Stamper let her mind wander to a time when the apple tree in her garden wasn’t bare, but bright with blossom and the promise of spring. One of her favourite memories flooded into focus. Annabel’s chubby fingers scrabbled around a hole in the bark of the tree. ‘Nanny, [...]

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Bringing up a baby is not what it used to be. Ten fingers and ten toes, crying, hunger and diapers: check. But when it comes to modern child rearing, the path is fraught and can be a minefield of contrasting and often confusing confusing ‘correct ways’ as to sleep cycles, routines, breast feeding and child [...]

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Rula Lenska reckons grandmothers should be given maternity leave. “My daughter, Lara, is a paediatric nurse, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t going to need me after she gives birth,” the actress tells me. Rula has just finished touring in a production of Calendar Girls and says, with the birth imminent, she isn’t taking on [...]

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The Fifties and Sixties radically changed British couples’ habits — sweeping away time-honoured traditions of how people ate, raised their children and behaved socially. Women tried to keep fashionably slim, took office jobs, bought convenience meals, had babies in quick succession, spurned breastfeeding and felt the pressure of their fast-paced lifestyles. To our parents’ generation [...]

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The 22-year-old said her father, Bob Geldof, was “overwhelmed” when she told him on Boxing Day that she was expecting a baby boy with her fiance Thomas Cohen. She told Hello! magazine: “Oh my God, he was so happy, especially as I’m having a boy. The poor man’s been surrounded by women up till now. [...]

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A 30-year-old, who last year became Britain’s youngest grandfather, has been dumped by his girlfriend who claims he is a useless parent and regularly drinks up to 14 pints of lager a night. Unemployed Shem Davies, from Bridgend, Wales, hit the headlines after his daughter Tia gave birth to baby girl Ava Grace a week [...]

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Bob and Anne Sears look out at the walled garden from their two-bedroom cottage in a “retirement village” near Maidstone in Kent, and say: “We’ve never regretted moving here.” Three years ago they sold their five-bedroom house in Essex and became the first people to move to Mote House, then still under construction by Audley, [...]

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My father is turning 90 soon, and, though he is sprightly for his age, I worry that time is running out for him. He fell out with my brother more than 50 years ago, and they rarely meet. It upsets me and I’d like to find a way for them to be reconciled before it’s [...]

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Teenager Cassie McCord was killed by an 87-year-old motorist who drove into her as she walked on the pavement – three days after he refused to surrender his licence to police. Colin Horsfall had been in a minor accident and failed an on-the-spot eye test but held onto his driving licence, an inquest heard. Cassie, [...]

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He’s done just about everything: flown hot air balloons in the Arctic and crashed them in Morocco, sailed in storms across the Atlantic, set up more than 400 Virgin companies, appeared in Friends and worked with legends such as Nelson Mandela on saving the world. So what’s left for Sir Richard Branson to do? The [...]

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Job hunters seeking work at 100 of Britain’s biggest firms may be asked to avoid listing their school on application forms under rules to end the influence of the old boy network. The blue chip companies – which  employ two million staff – have signed up to a voluntary code under which application forms will [...]

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A stroke victim died in  hospital after bank holiday staff shortages led to appalling basic errors in her care. Christine Lofthouse, 67, was  admitted to St James’s Hospital in Leeds late on New Year’s Eve 2010. But instead of receiving prompt  medical attention, she was left on a trolley for hours, not given antibiotics to [...]

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A grandfather has died after being stung by a swarm of Portuguese Man o’ Wars in South Africa. Roland Singh, 58, collapsed after suffering severe anaphylactic shock when he was stung by the jellyfish-like creatures on Saturday as he swam with his granddaughter in the sea near Cape Town. Paramedics tried to resuscitate the South [...]

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When I was in my early 20s, my mother told me she wanted to kill herself when she reached the age of 70. She was completely calm as she explained her decision. By contrast I sat on the floor of my flat, shaking. Ignoring my distress, my mother continued to discuss her plan to commit [...]

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A few months ago, my Gran died. She had terminal cancer, so it was expected. She slipped away quietly in a side room on a medical ward of a provincial teaching hospital, with my sister and me holding her hand and talking to her gently. It was a delicate, humane and peaceful end. On her [...]

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Betty Yates, who died of a stab wound, was discovered on Wednesday morning in the living room of the £300,000 riverside cottage she had shared with her late husband Raymond, a consultant engineer. Police had been contacted by a worried friend who had been unable to contact Mrs Yates and was concerned for her welfare. [...]

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A Second World War hero who spent four years as a prisoner of war after being captured by the Germans finally received a letter from his stepmother -  70 years after it was posted. The letter had been sent to the Field Post Office in Egypt in 1941, where Dave Hutton – now 94 – [...]

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A delighted widower told today how he wed his teenage sweetheart 42 years after she dumped him – by tracking her down on Facebook. Determined Hugh Forsythe, 60, was heartbroken when Maureen Wallace ended their four-month relationship in 1970, and the couple went on to lead separate lives. But through a chance meeting in the [...]

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cont …   retired teacher, who was attacked by Hoare in Roundhay Park, Leeds, in 1988 was made an MBE in the 2012 Queen’s New Year honours for services to the community in Yorkshire. Hoare was jailed for life the year after the attempted rape, but won £7.2m in 2004 when he bought a Lotto [...]

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‘It’s hilarious and will make you cry. David Walliams hits a high note’ David Walliams presents to us another hilarious book for kids about the one thing young people think is boring – their grannies. If you think your granny sucks Murray Mints all day, plays Scrabble and always wears mauve, then think again for [...]

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An 80-year-old British grandmother was critically injured in a solo flight in Australia yesterday as she swerved to avoid a house with children in it.

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When 89-year-old Margaret Park’s family were told she had only hours to live, they gathered by her hospital bed to say goodbye. But baffled as to how a pensioner who had gone to hospital with a bad back could now be at death’s door, they decided to ignore the doctors’ grim prognosis and nurse her [...]

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