Josie Church and Anne Wallace-Hadrill have lived side-by-side since the 1980s – and are now celebrating their 101st birthdays
Next-door neighbours Josie Church and Anne Wallace-Hadrill have a unique bond – both are ringing in their 101st birthdays. The two great-grans, who have been neighbours in Oxford since the 1980s, share even more than an address: they were both born on the same day on April 1 1924.
Reflecting on their lives and the possible secrets to living longer, Josie said: “I think life has gone quite quickly.” She reminisced about their younger years, saying: “Anne was very busy when she was younger, so was I, and was very productive and creative.”
Delving into their shared past, Josie recalled: “She did a lot of painting and tapestry, and she was always busy, and I was always busy doing something else, somewhere else, because that’s the sort of life we live.”
Pondering over the speed of life, Josie mused: “I don’t think we’ve thought much about the time passing. It’s just passed.” After facing the loss of their spouses, both women found solace in volunteering and artistic pursuits.
Josie’s husband, Peter, passed away in the 1990s, which led to her burgeoning friendship with Anne. Anne, originally hailing from Hampshire, took up residence next door after her historian husband, John Michael Wallace-Hadrill, passed away.
An alumna of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford University, Anne studied English and contributed to the war effort as a radio mechanic in the Women’s Royal Naval Service during WWII. During her university days at then all-female St. Hilda’s, Anne remarked: “We weren’t forbidden from seeing men.” She detailed her college experience: “We were expected to live decent lives.”
Looking back with fondness, Anne reflected on her time at university as both enjoyable and strenuous. Her story intertwined with her future husband at a family event where they first met.
After completing her studies, Anne took up a role as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary. She shared: “I was always interested in words. It was my trade.”
Receiving a medal from the Royal Navy last year for her service was a moment of immense pride for her, with the representative who presented it to her describing it as “long overdue”.
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Hailing from Manchester, Josie underwent her training at Preston Royal Infirmary and has vivid memories of the inception of the NHS. She described her training as “three years of hard work”.
“In those days,” Josie recalled, “You had to live in and you couldn’t get married, and it was very strict. People wouldn’t put up with that sort of life now.” Her nursing stint during the Second World War included a “chilling” experience of caring for SS German soldiers. Josie recounted: “They weren’t very nice. They didn’t wish to be taken care of by us. They were very difficult patients. “.
She relocated to Oxford with her husband so he could resume his degree at University College, which had been interrupted by the war, and they “lived the life of an undergraduate”. The student population was split between those who had experienced war and fresh-faced students just starting their university journey.
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Josie observed: “Oxford was very strange because each college had a large intake of older people who’d gone through the war and were taking up their university places. “So you’d get the old men and then the young 18-year-olds coming in from school. Oxford wasn’t like it is now. There were quite a lot of married undergraduates, which you don’t get, I don’t think, now.”
After tying the knot, she balanced working and caring for her family. Her spouse took on the role of housemaster at a boys’ boarding school, while she served as the house nurse, which led to an “interesting” tenure managing 120 boys.
She is blessed with three “wonderful” offspring – Chris, Pamela, and Andrew. Anne’s progeny, James, resides in Poole, whereas Andrew calls Cambridge home. The exact moment they realised they shared the same birthday escapes them, but last year’s festivities left a memorable impression. Josie gushed over their neighbourhood, asserting, “We live in the most amazing road. It’s like one big, extended family,”.
“Everybody knows everybody else. If you have a problem, you just give a shout and somebody will come. It was wonderful, we had a lovely day last year. It was quite unexpected because I didn’t know anything about it.
“It’s just an amazing street. I think we are lucky.” When asked for her secret to longevity, Josie simply said: “Just live. There’s not much you can do. You just go on from one thing to the next.”
She believes in taking things in stride: “You do what seems to be needing doing, and then you do that, and then something else takes its place. You just go on from one thing to another. We don’t engineer our lives. I think they’ve just engineered us.”