AFTER living through the Suffragette movement, 105-year-old Elizabeth Smith wasn't going to waste her vote in the General Election.

Elizabeth asked staff at the home where she lives in Shavington to push her wheelchair to the village's polling station.

There she put a cross in the spot for her chosen candidate before being taken back to Santune House for her nightly sherry.

Elizabeth is believed to be the oldest resident in the county. She loves fresh air and enjoyed the 10-minute trip in her chair from Rope Lane to the Main Road village hall.

Described by care assistants as 'bright as button', she followed the election campaign on TV and was keen to register her vote, remembering the terrible sacrifices made by Suffragettes in the name of voting equality for women.

She was born in November 1899 and was a schoolgirl in Liverpool at the height of the movement when Emily Pankhurst and followers were chaining themselves to railings and going on hunger strikes in jail.

In 1918 the Representation of the People Act gave propertied women over the age of 30 the right to vote. It was not until 1921 that all women aged over 21 were able to vote, giving them the same voting status as men.

Janet Whiston, a senior care assistant at Santune House, said: 'Elizabeth can remember reading about Suffragettes in the papers and said she wanted to vote no matter what the weather.

'In her younger years she worked as a nurse in Liverpool, before marrying her husband John and moving to Dig Lane in Shavington in her 40s.

'She is doing exceptionally well for her age. Up until two years ago she still went to Sunday services at the Methodist Church and knows people in the village.

'She likes a roast dinner, a glass of sherry in the evening and she loves the fresh air and wants the windows open even in the winter.'

And who did she vote for? Labour stalwart Gwyneth Dunwoody, 75, the longestserving woman MP.