A 73-year-old has been hailed as Britain’s first ”GRAN-LAD’ – who loves to party with her grandkids and have boozy raves to grime music.
Sprightly Brenda Willis, 73, loves to drink cider and head bang to Lethal Bizzle with Ryan White, 23, brother Ashley, 25 – and all their mates.
The youngsters regularly visit their nan in her care home – where she greets them with crates of tinnies.
Ryan and Ashley and about 15 of their pals drive down from Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, all the way to Dover, Kent, for party weekends with their nan.
Despite her age, widowed Brenda is “one of the lads” and “always up for the sesh,” according to her proud grandsons.
Ryan said: “It started with just me, my brother and our mates but it’s become a bit of a regular thing – we all look forward to it.
“She starts as we mean to go on. We are just a group of lads messing around and she always gets involved.
“It’s hilarious. You can see her home from the motorway so I usually call her, just to say we are close and will be arriving shortly.
“This one time, as we were pulling up, she came out with this crate of Strongbow.
“She was stood there, with a walking stick in one hand and a huge crate in the other, looking like she owned the whole place.”
Young-at-heart Brenda raps along to Lethal Bizzle and even joins the boys on boozy trips to Calais, which is just across the English Channel from her home in Dover.
Often Brenda will stay up until about 1am while the lads go out on the town, getting home about 6am, when the sprightly OAP will get up especially so they can play online bingo together.
Ryan first saw another side to his nan when he and his brother started having house parties at their parents’ house, and says Christmas with Brenda are always a laugh.
He said: “Even back when we were 18 years old, when we just started drinking and having gatherings at our house, she would always end up partying with us.
“We used to play drinking games and she was always one of the most involved.
“When she first moved down to Dover, we thought we’d make an effort to see her.
“Because there’s so many of us, my uncle who lives nearby has to bring some beds up to the home.
“One year I slept on a mattress in the medical room while one of the boys stayed with Phyllis next door.
“She said he could crash on her sofa, so he did. We all had a great time.”
Fortunately Brenda’s neighbours in the retirement home are accommodating to her party lifestyle and seem to enjoy seeing the huge group of lads on their “pilgrimage.”
Criminology graduate Ryan said: “I think a few of them quite like seeing some young people around – it reminds them of their youth a bit.”
Brenda has nicknames for all Ryan’s mates and always ruffles their hair when they arrive – despite most of them being taller than the tiny pensioner.
She used to run a restaurant in Cheddar, Somerset, Brenda visits the West Country, even if her grandsons aren’t at home, their pals always pop round to see her.
Ryan said: “She has definitely become one of the lads.
“Even when she sometimes comes up to Weston to visit, I’ll come home from work and some of the boys will be there having a coffee and a catch-up with her.
“Her motto is ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ – that’s the phrase she lives by.”
