Doreen, 90, still feels the need for speed
7:50am Tuesday 10th November 2009 in News
THE DRIVE OF HER LIFE: Doreen Flockhart with professional driver Neil McGrath
GRANDMOTHER Doreen Flockhart starts each day by touching her toes 12 times and running up and down the stairs.
So when it came to celebrating her 90th birthday, the spritely thrill-seeker was not going to settle for afternoon tea and scones.
Mrs Flockhart, known to her friends as Dory, stunned onlookers when she was driven around a racing track in a black Porsche Boxster on Saturday.
The birthday girl, of Craighall Road in Sharples, whizzed around the Three Sisters track in Wigan with professional driver Neil McGrath, reaching speeds of 115 miles an hour as her family watched.
After the laps, Mrs Flockhart appeared calm and serene saying: “It was really thrilling, I have always liked a bit of speed.”
The experience was organised by daughter Sue Fletcher, aged 55, when her mum reached the milestone on October 2.
But the adventurous Mrs Flockhart is no stranger to adventure – for her 80th birthday she was taken for a drive in an Eddie Stobart truck because she had always wanted to “ride a juggernaut, on a motorway, in a thunderstorm”.
Mrs Flockhart has been interested in motor racing since she was a young girl and used to watch the vehicles hurtling past on the A5 when she lived in Bedfordshire.
She said: “I would watch the wagons and always wondered what was underneath the tarpaulin and where they were going. The policeman would come up to me and tell me I should go home because I’d been there all day.”
Mrs Flockhart, a former cashier, moved to Bolton with her soldier husband John in 1953.
Since being widowed in 1993, she has fulfilled her passion for writing, and kept up her daily diary which she started at the age of 12.
“I have lots of friends and they say I talk a lot. I don’t have a secret, I must have been blessed with good genes,” she said.
As well as the Porsche experience, Mrs Flockhart enjoyed a surprise party with more than 50 family and friends at the Pack Horse in Affetside, where she was presented with a “memory book” compiled by her nearest and dearest.
Mrs Fletcher said: “Mum is simply amazing, we are so proud of her.”
Mrs Flockhart says she is hoping to celebrate her 100th birthday by parachuting out of an aeroplane.
