Never too old to graduate: 101-year-old care home resident finally gets degree

Care home resident Betty Yorke had double the reason to celebrate on 17 March, after turning 101 and becoming one of the UK’s oldest graduates, proving you are never too old to fulfil your wishes.

Last year, the centenarian and former school teacher admitted that her main regret was not having the chance to obtain a university degree, as the outbreak of the Second World War had thwarted her plans to do so.

But earlier this year, the University of Roehampton offered former students who had been awarded a Certificate in Education before 1980, the opportunity to be awarded an Honorary Bachelor of Education degree in recognition of subsequent services to education.

Ms Yorke, who is a resident at Meadway Court in Bramhall, was delighted to be awarded the degree. She said: "To be one of the oldest people in the UK to have been awarded a degree is very unusual as I never expected to live this long. I feel very privileged to have obtained my degree at this stage in my life.

"The award has taken pride of place in my bedroom where I can look at it every day and has made up for all the years I missed out at university because of the war."

She added: "I taught religious education to 150 pupils as the other teachers took that time to sort out the school's finances, the pupils' dinner money and the milk money. It was hard work as you had to put a lot of hours in and it was very daunting at the time because I was only 23-years-old."

Onset of the war

Ms Yorke, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, started her training at Southlands College in Wimbledon in 1935 but was unable to complete it due to the onset of the war.

She moved to Liverpool where her father was chaplain at a church and began her teaching career at Liverpool’s Upper Park Street School from which she took wartime evacuees to Sandbach. It was here that she met her husband Charles and later started a family.

She continued to pursue a highly successful career in teaching biology and giving careers advice, culminating in her post as one of the senior teachers and head of careers at Wilmslow Girls Grammar School, from which she retired in 1976.

Never too old to learn

Unable to attend the ceremony for the Conferment of Honorary Degrees at the Royal Festival Hall in London this coming May, arrangements were made at the care home for Ms Yorke to be presented with the degree certificate on her 101st birthday.

The staff at Meadway Court were delighted that Ms Yorke finally achieved her wish and arranged a special birthday cake for her to celebrate her latest academic achievement as well as the first year of her second century.

"You are never too old to learn but if I was given another opportunity I would have liked to have studied nutrition as I find it very interesting," said Ms Yorke. "Unfortunately, no such course existed at the time I was studying to become a teacher, presumably because nobody cared about what went into our food back then."

Southlands College combined with others to form the Roehampton Institute of Higher Education in 1975, which in turn became the University of Roehampton in 2004.

Meadway Court is a purpose-built care home for older people, located in a quiet corner of Bramhall, and provides accommodation and support to 42 older people.

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