Gladys Hooper

Gladys Hooper (née Nash, born 18 January 1903) is an English supercentenarian who became the oldest living person in the United Kingdom  after the death of 114-year-old Ethel Lang on 15 January 2015.

Early life
Hooper was born on 18 January 1903 in Dulwich, North London. In 1916, she witnessed the German airship Schütte-Lanz SL 11 being shot down by Leefe Robinson, who was later awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions. Hooper also met Thomas Edison, co-inventor of the lightbulb, when he visited her school. Hooper went to college with aviator Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia, they became friends, with Hooper saying "She was good fun and a very good friend". Hooper was also a concert pianist, and played with famous bandleaders such as Jack Payne, Debroy Somers and Maurice Winnick.

In 1922, at the age of 19, Gladys married Leslie Hooper, who had been a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during the The First World War. The couple had one child, a son called Derek, who later became a pilot.

Later life
Gladys Hooper was married to Leslie for 55 years until his death from Parkinson's disease in 1977. She moved to Sandown on the Isle of Wight in 1979, to be closer to her family. She lived independently until the age of 101, when she moved to the town of Ryde, also on the Isle of Wight, to live with her son Derek.

Gladys Hooper has outlived all of her siblings after her the death of her youngest sibling Joyce in 2014, at the age of 92. Three days before her 112th birthday in January 2015, she became the oldest verified living person in Britain on the death of Ethel Lang, who was 114 years old.