Ruth had op aged 81

FOUR years ago, aged 81, Ruth Rose became the oldest male-born person in Britain to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

Ruth, pictured, who was married and has three children, says she wanted to be female since she was nine, and after surgery achieved ‘total acceptance’.

Each morning she swims with a ‘bunch of ladies’ in the sea in East Sussex. ‘My friends don’t think of me as having been male,’ she said.