Gladys Hooper was born on 18 January 1903 in West Dulwich, South London. In 1916, she witnessed the German airship Schütte-Lanz SL 11 being shot down by Leefe Robinson, who was later awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions. Hooper also met Thomas Edison, co-inventor of the lightbulb, when he visited her school. Hooper went to college with aviator Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia, they became friends, with Hooper saying “She was good fun and a very good friend”. Hooper was also a concert pianist, and played with famous bandleaders such as Jack Payne, Mantovani, Debroy Somers and Maurice Winnick. In 1922, at the age of 19, she married Leslie Hermiston Hooper, who had been a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. The couple had one child, a son named Derek, who later became a pilot.

Gladys Hooper was married for 55 years until her husband’s death from Parkinson’s disease in 1977. She moved to Sandown on the Isle of Wight in 1979, to be closer to her family. She lived independently until the age of 101, when she moved to the town of Ryde, also on the Isle of Wight, to live with her son Derek. Three days before her 112th birthday in January 2015, she became the oldest verified living person in Britain on the death of Ethel Lang, who was 114 years old. In October 2015, at the age of 112, she had a hip replacement operation after falling out of bed and breaking her hip. She is believed to be the oldest person to have undergone such an operation. Gladys Hooper died on 9 July 2016 at Highfield Nursing Home in Ryde.