Britain's oldest waitress at Sheffield Hotel and Spa forced to retire through injury at 91

Violet Garratty has been working two days a week at the Kenwood Hall Hotel and Spa in Sheffield for the last 32 years.  CREDIT: SWNS

Transcript

00:00 What made you choose to learn to fly in the 80s?

00:02 Oh it was my son. My brother lived near the Chiltern Mountains, lived in Buckingham,

00:09 and it wasn't far from the Chiltern Mountains. And I always wanted, we used to go and watch him

00:17 paraglide. And I said, "Oh one day, Ernest, I'm going to come and I'm going to have a go

00:24 jumping off. I fancy jumping off paragliding." So my son, you see, he couldn't get me to

00:31 paragliding. He thought, "Best, next best, flying lesson." So when I was 80, he says,

00:41 "I've got a nice surprise for you, Mum." And yeah, so they took me out like, and he said,

00:50 "I've got you a flying lesson." I went, "Oh, fantastic." I was right excited, you know.

00:57 They thought, "Oh, I'd be frightened," you know, but I wanted to look forward to it.

01:01 Anyhow, you go, and I got into the plane, and once you get up in the air,

01:10 the pilot gives you the controls. And so you do what he tells you to do, you know.

01:19 And it was fantastic. And he said, "Where would you like to go?" I said, "Oh," he says, "I'd like

01:24 to go over Otter." So he said, "Right, so we went right out to the Pennines, and we came over Kenwood."

01:32 And he took it a little bit lower, you know. So that was quite exciting, you know.

01:39 [ Silence ]