IVY Benson, the woman believed to have been Huntingdonshire’s oldest resident, has died at the age of 105.

IVY Benson, the woman believed to have been Huntingdonshire’s oldest resident, has died at the age of 105.

Born in Liverpool on New Year’s Day in 1906, Mrs Benson was a schoolteacher in the 1920s and 1930s, and drove ambulances in the Second World War.

She lived most of her life in Liverpool with her husband Frank, moving to Manchester before her husband’s death in 1976. She moved to a care home near Birmingham at the age of 98 after falling ill, and to the Ringshill care home in Huntingdon in 2004 in order to be closer to her family.

She had no children but, as one of nine children herself, had some 50 nieces and nephews and 30 great nieces and nephews.

Ken Serjent, of Lakeside Mews, Grafham, said Mrs Benson, his wife’s aunt, had been a strong-minded woman.

“She was a very independent lady who was very determined. She was known in the care home as a bit of a character, which was absolutely true,” said Mr Serjent.

“She was very fit, mentally and physically, and only went into hospital for the first time when she was in her eighties. The doctors couldn’t believe there was only one page to her medical records, because she had been as fit as a fiddle.”

Following her 105th birthday, for which Mrs Benson received her second card from the Queen, The Hunts Post appealed for anyone older to come forward, but no one could match her 105 years.

? Mrs Benson’s funeral will take place at the East Chapel of Cambridge Crematorium on Wednesday, March 23, at 1.45pm.