A FUNERAL service will be held next week for Grace Rasch, who was believed to be Wellington’s oldest resident until her death just a month before her 108th birthday.

Grace, who lived in South Street, used to put her longevity down in part to having ‘the odd tipple of gin’ and keeping herself as active as she could.

She was born in Southampton in 1918 toward the end of the First World War, and during World War Two she worked in Harrow as an ambulance driver.

Later, Grace was an accountant and worked and lived in Bilbao, Spain, with her late husband John, who was an investor and who pre-deceased her in 1988.

She moved to Wellington to be close to her brother Sidney Haynes and they bought properties next door to each other.

Grace played a lot of competitive tennis for her local club in her younger years and she was a big fan of the Wimbledon tournament.

She also loved roses, as well as donkeys, and often visited the Donkey Sanctuary charity, near Sidmouth.

Grace had the distinction of being honoured with Royal birthday cards during her centenarian years by both the late Queen Elizabeth II and the current monarch King Charles III.

She would joke that Buckingham Palace would not forget her birthday because a great niece at one time had worked in the Royal household for the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip.

The arrangements for Grace’s funeral are being made by H. Tredwin and Son, of Wellington, and the service will be held at 2.40 pm in the Taunton Deane Crematorium on Wednesday, June 24.

Grace requested family flowers only, but donations can be made for the St Margaret’s Somerset Hospice charity either at the crematorium service or via the funeral directors.