GOLDEN oldie Frances Cripps, who has died aged 106, was a great character who loved life - including a diet of three gins a day.

Mrs Cripps, believed to be Oxford's oldest citizen, spent the last ten years of her life at the Woodlands rest home, in Woodstock Road, Oxford. She was immensely proud of her age and kept seven telegrams from the Queen safe in a drawer.

Close friend Molly Ferry, who knew her for years, said: "She was quite a character. She knew exactly what she wanted and you could not argue with her.

"That is why she lived that long, because she had plenty of spirit," she said from her home in Aysgarth Road, Yarnton.

Mrs Cripps, who was born in Devon but lived most of her life in north Oxford, endured a series of personal tragedies. Her son was killed after being hit on the head with a cricket ball aged just 12 years.

After the First World War she and her husband Leonard opened a gentlemen's outfitters in St Aldate's. But Leonard died in 1944 and Mrs Cripps became involved in voluntary work for the deaf. Last year she met the then Oxford Lord Mayor Bill Baker, raising a glass to him at a party held at Woodlands.

At the time she said: "I have three gin and tonics every day which keeps me going. I must have come from good stock and good feeding when I was a child. You had good food in those days, my mother saw to that."

She died in the early hours of Monday morning.

Care assistant Marie Brassill said: "Frances was a happy, kind, fun-loving lady. She was always good for a joke - we really do miss her."

The funeral is being held at Wolvercote Cemetery Chapel, Oxford, at noon next Thursday.

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