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A 105-year-old woman in Britain says she knew at the age of 12 while growing up in New Zealand that she would remain single.
"I made my mind up at the age of 12 never to marry and I've not gone back on that," Clara Meadmore told the Daily Mail in Truro.
Her family emigrated to New Zealand in 1910, when she was 7, but she moved back to Britain alone in her 20s, and has never had sex in her life because intimate relationships seemed like "a lot of hassle".
Miss Meadmore, who remembers New Zealand declaring war - in World War I - said she abstained as a young woman in order to concentrate on earning a living.
The retired secretary said that during her youth in New Zealand sex entailed marriage - and she just did not buy into it.
"I had to learn to stand up for myself and earn my own living," she said. "Some men don't like that in a woman and before long I was too old to marry anyway. I have just never been interested in sex."
- NZPA