Tributes pour in to Bognor Regis' oldest resident

The funeral service of Alice Newell took place at 12.30pm yesterday (Wednesday, April 23) at the town's Methodist Church.

It was followed by a cremation at Chichester Crematorium. Miss Newell passed away on April 13 aged 107 years, three months and 13 days.

She had lived at the Greenways Methodist home in Hawthorn Road for her final four months after moving from the bungalow she had called home for 40 years.

Greenways' manager Annie Miles said: "Alice was a remarkable woman. She was independent and active.

"In her final seven days, she attended a music movement and exercise class and participated fully. She was fully alert and very self sufficient. She would allow us to assist her but always used to do everything she possibly could for herself."

Miss Newell's niece by marriage, Marguerite Newell, said: "Alice was quite a private person but she had a lovely laugh and a great sense of humour. She was like a living history book. She could remember the Titanic sinking and writing a poem about it at school.

"She loved her garden and was a great gardener.

"She was still putting in seeds and doing other bits and pieces in her 106th year."

Miss Newell was born in the Wakefield area of Yorkshire on December 31, 1900, as the fifth of nine siblings and the longest surviving.

Some of her earliest memories were of working on her father's allotment where she developed her lifelong love of gardening.

She trained as a seamstress for three years at night school, working until 8pm.

World War II saw her involved in welfare work and catering. She left Wakefield to move to Matlock where she worked at Bolsover College in catering. Next came a move to Somerset and two and a half years at the Lady Mabel training college.

She came to Bognor in 1967 and moved into a bungalow in Hook Lane with two of her sisters, Dolly and Margaret. A third already lived in the town.

Miss Newell lived on her own in the property, following Margaret's death in 1997, for ten years before she moved into Greenways last December 19, just 12 days before her 107th birthday.

Miss Newell, who never smoked or drank alcohol, cooked her owns meals until then. She never married.

Her closest relatives are two nieces and a nephew, six great nieces and two great nephews and two great-great nieces and one great-great nephew.