NELLIE ALDERSON never really had a chance to learn to swim when she was younger.

She was too busy helping out on the family farm on the hills above Low Row in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, or bringing up her family of four.

But, now she has a little more time to herself, she agreed to give it a try - despite the fact she's 100 later this year.

"You're never too old to learn,'' she said yesterday. "Water always fascinated me and I enjoyed a paddle when we went to the seaside when I was younger but I never got around to learning to swim.''

Nellie has had three lessons and hopes to go the baths as often as she can with staff from the Nightingale Hall residential home in Richmond, where she lives. "The girls have been marvellous. They suggested it and they really look after me,'' she said.''

Daughter, Jo Etherington, 77, who lives in Richmond, with husband Jack, 79, said her mother was adventurous.

"She has never been one for sitting around the house. She used to be quite a runner when she was younger. She never learned to swim because she was too busy looking after her children, although we all learned in the river at Reeth.''

Nellie, who has been a Northern Echo reader since the early 1920s, is 100 in October.

She has outlived eldest daughter, Ella, but Jo, her third daughter Betty, who lives in Scotland, and son, Ralph of Barton, North Yorkshire, all plan to celebrate with her.