Centenarian thanks God for helping her

SHE IS TEN YEARS OLDER than the Queen and she knows it.

And the island’s latest centenarian Mildred Gentilia Turney credits her longevity to God.

Surrounded by her family, including her 91-year-old sister Clovine, at her Hothersal Crescent, St Michael home on Sunday, Turney told Governor General Sir Elliott Belgrave: “God is good. God is love. God has helped me for a very long time.”

She had earlier told him, after reading the birthday greeting from Queen Elizabeth, that the monarch was 90 years old and she knew this “because I see it in the paper and my granddaughter read it to me”.

“I don’t look at TV,” she added.

Delores Turney, her caregiver, said her grandmother’s appetite was good, as was her sight and hearing.

“She is easy-going. She never drank [alcohol], she never partied and she loves to sing church songs. [She] does it every day with her sister [Clovine],” she said, adding her grandmother was a strict disciplinarian.

Turney, the mother of three children, one of whom pre-deceased her,  and 11 grandchildren, worked as a domestic in her younger days. (HLE)