105-year-old virgin 'didn't buy into marriage'

A 105 year-old woman says she knew at the age of 12 while growing up in New Zealand that she would remain single.

"I made my mind up at the age of 12 never to marry and I've not gone back on that," Clara Meadmore told the Daily Mail in Truro, Cornwall.

Her family emigrated to New Zealand in 1910, when she was seven, but she moved back to Britain alone in her 20s, and has never had sex in her life because intimate relationships seemed like "a lot of hassle".

Miss Meadmore, who remembers New Zealand declaring war – in World War 1 – said she knew she would remain single from the age of 12, and abstained as a young woman in order to concentrate on earning a living.

The retired secretary said that during her youth in New Zealand sex entailed marriage – and she just did not buy into it.

"I had to learn to stand up for myself and earn my own living," she said. "Some men don't like that in a woman and before long I was too old to marry anyway."

She was proud that she had remained celibate: "People have asked whether I am a homosexual and the answer is no, I have just never been interested in or fancied having sex.

"I imagine there is a lot of hassle involved and I have always been busy doing other things."

Miss Meadmore was born in Glasgow in 1903, just two years after the death of Queen Victoria, said she had to work to support herself as a secretary and a housekeeper but despite several offers of marriage she turned them all down.

She will celebrate her 105th birthday tomorrow at a party with friends at a nursing home.

- NZPA