Britain C-c-old; 100-Year-Old Returns to L.A.

Remember the line in the song: “Hate California, it’s cold and it’s damp”? Mary Armstrong remembers it well.

She could be forgiven for humming it this weekend, her first back in Los Angeles after spending nine months in the chill, dank drafts of her native England.

Only in the case of Mrs. Armstrong, who celebrated her 100th birthday a month and a half ago, the lyric to the tune, she said, would be revised: “Love California, it’s hot and it’s dry.” England (specifically, a suburb of Newcastle in the northeast of the old country where she lived with a niece) is where “it’s cold and it’s damp”--so much so, said Mrs. Armstrong, “I was sick the whole time I was there.”

Lost Weight, Gained Cough

Speaking with a cough (“I brought this back from England with me”), she raised a sleeve of her robe and rubbed her left hand the length of her thin right arm: “I lost 26 pounds after I left California. There’s nothing left of me.”

For those who don’t recall, Mrs. Armstrong is the strong-willed woman who decided last year after living for 65 years away from her native land, most of them in Los Angeles, that it was “time to go home.”

Because she long ago had become an American citizen, she learned that the best she could hope for would be a visa which would allow her to remain in England for only six months.

So, being a sensible woman, she went directly “to the top,” appealing to Queen Elizabeth by letter. The queen intervened by instructing the Home Office to issue Mrs. Armstrong a “certificate of entitlement,” which when attached to her American passport granted her permanent residence in England.

Off to London

With no small amount of fanfare, British Airways just before last Christmas provided her with a flight to London. Her niece, a grandmother herself, picked her up at Heathrow Airport and took her to her home in Blaydon-on-Tyne.

But, said Mrs. Armstrong after settling in a mid-Wilshire retirement apartment house after her return here last week, “The minute I stepped off the plane, I knew something was wrong. I felt a shiver. And I said to myself, ‘I’m too old for this cold.’ ”

Her Heathrow premonition, she said, proved correct.

“I got out of the house (her niece’s) only twice. Both times to go to the eye doctor.

“It was so cold. I was never so cold in my life as I was in England. I love England. But I don’t remember it being that way when I was a a young woman.”

Letters Didn’t Help

Two letters from Queen Elizabeth and one each from the Queen Mother and President Reagan cheered her, but even they did not lift the gloom that settled upon her, nor did they stay her failing health, she said.

“You know, I’d never been sick a day of my life until I went back to England. Going from the extreme heat to the extreme cold, I was sick all the time.”

A Newcastle doctor who treated her told her she needed sunshine and people. Her niece, she added, worked full-time.

Won’t the queen, whom she still reveres, be disappointed to learn of her decision to leave England once again? “I’m just an ordinary citizen. I bet she’s forgotten all about me. She’s so nice. But she’s such a busy lady.”

Mrs. Armstrong, who was widowed in 1947 and worked for an interior decorator until she was 88--and then gave up her job only because her employer retired--said she simply couldn’t understand the stir her decision to return to England created last winter.

Too Many Reporters

“I’m just an ordinary person walking around like everybody else. I didn’t like people asking all those questions,” she said of the frequent visits from reporters. “I wouldn’t go through that again for all the money in the world. I’ve jumped many obstacles in my time. But this affair just got me down more than anything else ever did.”

She also said that reports at the time of her departure about her disenchantment with America were “distorted” and disturbed her, although she conceded that being mugged near the small Los Angeles apartment she had lived in was a factor in her decision to return to England.

During a well-attended and pleasant birthday party in her niece’s home last August, Mrs. Armstrong said, “I got so tired, I just wished they’d all go home.” After that, she added, “I made up my mind all of a sudden” to return to Los Angeles.

Mrs. Armstrong, who lives on meager savings and Social Security payments, said she felt no shame about issuing an appeal for help in returning to America. Occidental Petroleum chairman Armand Hammer, himself in his 80s, heard of her plight and responded by buying a ticket for her flight here, she said.

“I’m glad I’m back,” she said, sitting in her new apartment on one of the hottest days of the year in Los Angeles. Pinching her frail arm, she added, “Now maybe I’ll put on some weight.”