Change language
Actions
Displays
Remove from selection
Add to selection
Abstract

GROWING older doesn’t mean that you lose your sense of romance.

That was the message from pensioners who gathered at Alsen Day Centre in Finsbury Park last Friday for their annual Valentine’s Ball.

They enjoyed songs and danced while care workers handed out a list of answers given by service users to the question: “What is love?”

Among the 54 replies given were “my whole family and the whole world”, an “open heart for everyone”, “love is God”, a “misunderstanding between two fools” and “Arsenal Football Club”.

In attendance was local celebrity Irene Sinclair, 108, who became the face of toiletries firm Dove’s campaign for real beauty at the age of 96.

Guyana-born Irene, who lives in sheltered accommodation in Stoke Newington, was seen chatting with Islington mayoress Patricia Bradbury and her close friend Florence Campbell, 80, a retired Whittington nurse who lives in Hornsey Road.

Irene recalled: “At 96 I travelled half the world as a model for Dove. They wanted to prove that not only young, slim models are beautiful. They say life starts at 40. For me everything went right for me from 92.”

Alsen Day Centre manager Lloyd Coombes said: “People don’t think of things like love and romance when they think of older people, but it’s still alive and well here.”