OLDEST SWIFTIE IN TOWN
Superfan Albert crazy about popstar Taylor, says carer
FULCHESTER resident Albert Grime yesterday reached his 109th birthday, and celebrated by taking the title of the oldest Swiftie in the world.
The former metal worker marked his record-breaking achievement with staff and fellow residents at the Sunny Glade care home where he has lived since 2004. “Albert is absolutely Taylor Swift mad, just like me,” said 28-year old care assistant Shania Roper, who has looked after him for the last 6 years.
And the WWII veteran is so crazy about the Cruel Summer hitmaker that his entire day revolves around the pop/folk rock star and her music. “When I arrive in the morning, I put a Taylor Swift CD on in Albert’s room while he has his breakfast, something from the early days, like Speak Now or Fearless,” Shania told reporters. “Then we put some of her music videos on the TV in his room, and he’ll listen to them whilst he reads his Racing Post.”
And Albert’s room in the care home has become a shrine to the pop singer/songwriter, with posters and newspaper cuttings adorning the walls. “My walls at home are covered in Swift posters,” said Shania. “I haven’t got room for them all, so I put them up in Albert’s room, because I know he’s as big a Swiftie as I am.”
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Although Albert had already been drawing his pension for ten years before Swift was born, and had reached his centenary by the time she released her first album in 2006, Shania says her music still chimes with Albert’s life.
“Taylor wrote the award-winning song Cardigan, and when I first met Albert in 2019, he was wearing an old, brown cardi,” she said. “I knew straight off that he was a fellow Swiftie.”
I couldn’t believe how she had once And Taylor’s latest, much again produced the soundtrack of anticipated album The Tortured Albert’s life,” Shania said.
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Poets Department continues
“The title track contains the line mirror and give voice to Albert’s
‘You take my ring off my middle experiences. “I got the album the
finger, and put it on the one people day it came out, and when I heard it, put wedding rings on,’ which is so true of Albert, who got married to his late wife Ada in 1935.”
“And in So High School, she sings about ‘smoking your jokes all damn night,’ and eerily, Albert was on sixty a day until he packed in in the 1970s,” she said.
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And it seems that Taylor’s music is in the blood, because Albert has a great granddaughter, Molly, who is the same age as his idol. And just like her great grandad, Molly is also a Swiftie.
“When I visit him, me and Shania stick some TayTay on in his room for him and bop about to it,” Molly told reporters. “I’m sure he’d love to dance too, but at 109 his legs aren’t really up to it, so he generally just sits listening in his chair and watching the racing on telly.”
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Staff held a Swift-themed birthday party for Albert, with a Taylor Swift cake, special Swift balloons and of course, the star’s music on the CD player. And local paper the Fulchester Groin Strain made the nonacentenarian’s day by presenting him with two tickets to see his pop hero live when she plays at the Fulchester Crucible as part of her world tour next year.
“Sadly, he won’t be able to go as he goes to bed at half past six every night,” said Shania. “But me and Molly will go instead,” she added, squeaking with excitement.
And as he tucked into a piece of birthday cake, Albert attributed his long life to listening to Taylor Swift every day. “I don’t like this new money, the coins are too bloody fiddly,” he said.
“Everybody knew each other and you could leave your doors open,” the Swift-mad pensioner added.