GRANDMOTHER Vera Mead keeps in shape with an incredible three gym visits a week despite being 85 years old.>

The superfit gran who works out

Picture shows Vera Mead at Strides Health Club

GRANDMOTHER Vera Mead keeps in shape with an incredible three gym visits a week despite being 85 years old.

Mrs Mead, 86 next month, who has five grandchildren, only stopped playing tennis at 82, but even then she took up short tennis and table tennis to stay in shape.

The gym, at Strides Health Club, Bois Moor Road, Chesham, has put up a picture of Mrs Mead to encourage everyone else trying to keep fit.

Mrs Mead, of Boughton Way, Little Chalfont, who still cycles to the shops, will also be swimming in Chesham's open-air pool during the summer.

She said: "At the centre they have a lovely lot of apparatus, including a rowing machine and bicycles.

"I think it helps a lot. When you get older you have got to do exercise, otherwise if you sit you get stiff.

"I have always tried to keep up cycling and tennis and other people at the gym say they hope they are as active as me when they reach my age."

Terry Rothwell, part-time adviser at the gym, said: "I think she's probably the most incredible woman of that age I've ever come across. She loves and lives for her training.

"She's a woman with severe arthritis of the knees. To keep that under control she needs to keep as much movement as possible in her joints."

He added: "Everybody gets a lot of pleasure out of seeing her training. She's an example to everybody at the gym and she's our mentor.

"Quite a few disabled people have seen her and say: 'If she can do it, so can I'."

% Do you know anyone of the same age or even older who keeps as fit as Mrs Mead? If you do, call John Weaver on (01494) 521212

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.