Posted on 05/08/2007 7:33:35 PM PDT by blam
96 years spent in same house - with same job
By Stewart Payne
Last Updated: 2:05am BST 09/05/2007
The world around him has changed almost beyond recognition, but throughout his 96 years Alex Baker has lived in the same house, spending his entire working life with the same company.
Born in 1911 as the Norwegian explorer Capt Roald Amundsen was beating Scott to the South Pole, he was the last of 10 children who all lived with their parents in a two-up, two-down terrace house in Portsmouth, Hants.
He grew up in an age when young men looked for jobs where they lived, and at the age of 15 he started work at the local Co-op, delivering groceries in a handcart.
He was promoted to the warehouse at 18, and apart from service in the Middle East during the Second World War, remained doing the same job until retirement.
Statistics show that the average modern family stays for 10 years in a house before moving. Mr Baker, who has five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, said: "This has always been my home. Why would I ever want to leave?"
His house was bought some 10 years before he was born for £130 by an uncle, who gave it to Mr Baker's mother. After her husband died in 1929, her other children moved on.
Mr Baker, who was delivered in the house, remained. His bride Edith, now 89, moved in when they married in 1939. When his mother died in 1957, the house was left to them. They raised three children who, in turn, have also moved on.
His son Brian, 66, a retired cabinet maker, said: "There were two bedrooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs, plus a scullery and an outside toilet. There was a tin bath in the yard and we still had gas lamps until I was seven or eight." The house, in the North End district and now worth £130,000, has changed little, apart from an extension for a ground-floor bathroom. A greenhouse stands where Mr Baker helped to dig a bomb shelter at the outbreak of the Second World War.
Recalling earlier days, Mrs Baker said: "Our key was always in the door and anybody who wanted to come in and have a cup of tea and a biscuit was welcome."
(...and, my ex-wife complained that I never wanted to go anywhere)
Nice. I miss my home and neighborhood from childhood days. Lots of great memories. I’ve moved many times since then and have never felt really “at home” anymore.
It’s good he could stay at his homeplace all these years.
A very different life. I still smile at the fun I had as a kid, riding in the rumble seat of his old car.
She and I got talking. She had 6 kids, 7 grandkids, and something like 28 great grand kids.
I forget all of the numbers exactly, but in the end, I did the math, and she had as of our conversation 76 descendants. She was only in her mid 80s if I recall correctly.
Seventy Six, thats the spirit.
God bless them, and you gotta love em.
Thanks for your share. I always admire people that have that sense of constancy and peace at where they are in the moment. It is everything the world is not today. It warms the heart.
Bless these folks, may they continue to enjoy their sunset years.
Today, the average Brit stays on the dole for 96 years...
Oh come on. He's not anywhere near Wisconsin.
I do understand your feelings. My folks have passed away also, and it does make a difference.
In fact, don’t know if life will ever be the same without them. Glad I have the Lord to hold on to...or should I say, for Him to hold me up and keep me going....
We probably don’t even realize how much the world has changed in the last 40 or so years....thankfully, the Lord is in control, and all things will go as He has planned.
It is nice to see glimpses of life as it once was lived by the general population (folks stayed closer to home; people actually knew and loved their relatives). Yes, it does warm the heart.
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