Sarah
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Somerset County Herald and Taunton Courier. Saturday 26 Nov 1938
Page 8 Column 3
A CENTENARIAN'S SECRET
Mrs. Emma COATE, of North Curry, whom, at 108 years of age, Somerset can claim as England's oldest woman, recommends an open-air life and contentment of mind to those who wish to be centenarians. Mrs. COATE's recipe seems to cut across the medical dictum that “a man is as old as his arteries,” unless it be that acting on her advice would keep the arteries elastic. However that may be, corroboration of Mrs. COATE's view about longevity came in one of the large batch of congratulatory messages she received for her birthday last Saturday. Mrs. Edith GARLAND, of Dorset, writing in the quaint dialect of that delightful country, contrasted the present troublous times with “thay good wold days wen it were paice and quietness.” That's it: “paice and quietness.” How good it is alike for soul and body, but how much harder to come by in these clamorous, machine-ridden days than it was when Mrs. COATE and Mrs. GARLAND were young. In the political sphere the Prime Minister has laid it down that peace can be had only by going out to get it. The same reasoning holds good in these days if peace of mind be the aim. To escape the modern whirl calls for positive effort. It means disregarding the Syrens who would lure one from the few quiet byways that are left wherein is to be found the re-creation which the body must have if it is to repel its foes, none of which is more deadly than habitual dispeace and disquiet.
<NOTES: Emma COATE is Emma TATTLE daughter of James Webber TATTLE and Mary MILLER, married Henry COATE>