15 Dec 2025
When Amelia Sylvia Neal – better known as “Mim” – uttered her first breath, the First World War was still raging across Europe, David Lloyd George was Prime Minister and George V was on the throne.
Born on December 7 1917, she celebrated her 108th birthday last week at Parkside View in Chiltern Road – an independent-living housing block for older people – joined by pupils from Skyswood School and Deputy Mayor of St Albans Cllr Susan Griffith.
She received a personal video message from Graeme Hall, presenter of her favourite TV programme Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, and enjoyed a birthday cake with guests, staff and fellow residents.
Her daughter Jenny Anfield explained why she describes her as the most wonderful mother in the world: “She’s stoic, very hard-working and obsessively tidy. She became a pharmacist when she was 17. She then went and trained as a locum, so she could mix up all the medicines from very old-fashioned plants and things like that.
“So if you had a headache, they would use willow to cure it. They used to pound it and make it into tablets and things like that. I’m immensely proud of her for being so intelligent and having a career that was quite unusual for a young woman in those days.”
“Well, when she got to 100, I thought, wow, but then we got to 101, 102… and I wasn’t expecting there would be a party again for a 108-year-old, but I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if I’m not doing one for a 110-year-old at some point.
“I adore her, and I admire her persistence in survival. She’s very, very determined. The best thing she has taught me is to be kind to people, to treat everybody with utter respect and to treat people the way you would want to be treated yourself, and it’s stood me in good stead for my life.”
Care home manager Joanne Hall described Mim as the matriarch of Parkside View: “Everyone knows Mim, but she’s very humbling as well. She never moans, she never growls and she’s always positive. We felt this would be a really lovely day to celebrate Mim and all that she’s about.”
