An internet-crazy grandmother has proved that life doesn't begin at 40, or even 50.

Web-smart gran-of-three Margaret Metcalfe surfs the web, met her partner using e-mail and works with computers - and she's 64.

Margaret, of Rochefort Drive, Southend, started three 15-week courses last September through Southend Adult Community College.

She earned a text-processing diploma with three distinctions and two passes after a tough set of exams including medical and legal word processing.

Just weeks before her exams she fell and fractured her elbow and no one expected her to sit them let alone pass with distinctions

Margret said: "I had surgery and had pins and plates put in, then spent six weeks in a fibre-glass cast."

The former Rochford Hospital midwife bought her computer to cheer herself up in 1992 after the death of her husband and being made redundant.

Since then her life has turned around.

She works with computers through the agency Adecco, and met her new partner, Barry Stoll, 65, from Nottingham, via the internet a couple of years ago He now works for local web company Demon Internet.

On line - Margaret proves age is no barrier when it comes to learning about new technology

Picture: ROBIN WOOSEY

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