SEX, a 'hassle,' says 105-year-old virgin

Chaste Clara Meadmore has NEVER bothered with a bit of the other — and reckons it could be the secret behind her long life.

She said yesterday: “I’ve just never been interested in or fancied having sex.

“I imagine there’s a lot of hassle involved.”

Retired secretary Clara, who turns 105 tomorrow, says she knew she would live a celibate life from the age of 12.

Sex in her youth meant getting married — and she made up her mind as a schoolgirl that she would always remain single.

She said: “I’ve never had a boyfriend and never been bothered about relationships.

“When I was a girl you only had sex with your husband — and I never wed.

“I’ve always had lots of platonic friendships with men, but never felt the need to go further.

“I made my mind up at 12 never to marry and I’ve not gone back on that.”

Clara added on sex: “I’ve always been too busy doing other things. People have asked if I’m a homosexual — the answer is no.”

The sprightly OAP, a keen walker who mowed her own lawn until she was 97, was born in Glasgow in 1903 — just two years after the death of Queen Victoria.

She can remember the Titanic sinking in 1912 when she was eight, and the outbreak of World War One.

Her family emigrated to Egypt, Canada, then New Zealand when she was seven, but independent Clara returned to Britain alone in her twenties.

She served in Egypt with the Women’s Royal Army Corps during World War Two then lived between London and New Zealand before retiring to Cornwall.

She worked as a secretary and a housekeeper, but despite “several” offers of marriage she turned them all down.

Clara added: “I grew up in an era where little girls were seen and not heard so I had to learn to stand up for myself and earn my own living.

“Some men don’t like that in a woman and before long I was too old to marry anyway.”

Clara now lives in a nursing home in Perranporth, Cornwall.

She has never owned a TV, loves cats, the radio and reading — and plans to celebrate her birthday with a drop of wine.

Her closest friend Josie Harvey, 72, said: “Maybe never having a man to get under her feet has kept Clara young.

“She has her hobbies and her friends and those are all she needs.”