Mary Elizabeth Hogg, always known as "Lillie" was 103 when she died.

She had never married, had children, smoked or drank alcohol and rarely left her Harrogate home.

She was a true believer in natural remedies and her bible was the 1920s manual How to Live 100 Years, compiled by James Robinson, of Bradford, and sold early in the last century for a shilling. The 90-page publication features an array of natural remedies for such ills as earache, boils, bunions and bad breath.

It covers everything from pills and potions to common sense advice, and lists products ranging from Hair Restoring Pomade and Anti-Fat tablets to Golden Health tablets.

Among the more outlandish cures, the one for earache calls for the sufferer to "take as much black pepper as will lie on a sixpence, wrap it tightly in a small piece of cotton or linen, moisten with sweet oil then insert in the ear with a little dry cotton and bandage the head. The pain will ease at once."

The book would have remained hidden if it had not been for Lillie's great niece Elizabeth Harfleet.

Elizabeth was helping her mum move house in Knaresborough when she came across the brown paper cover of the book among items Lillie had left to her father when she died in 1973.

Elizabeth, 46, who moved to Manchester from Knaresborough when she was 19, said: "As I began to thumb through the yellowed pages, I quickly realised that I was holding a piece of history. It was all the more remarkable because my great aunt Lillie had obviously proved that living by this book had worked.

"I knew this book was a special find and particularly fascinating because of my own career change to nutritional therapy some years previously.""

Elizabeth has now successfully managed to get the book republished as an ebook.

The book has been published by Forgotten Titles, an epublishing business that aims to make available titles that would otherwise be out of print.

Lillie was born in Sicklinghall to a wealthy farming family. The eldest of five children, her father was a farmer and her mother was schoolmistress at Linton School for 30 years. A devotee of natural remedies, she overcame breast cancer and having her appendix removed at an advanced age to outlive all her siblings.

Elizabeth has inherited her great aunt's belief in natural remedies. Following her own health problems, she changed career in 2000 and trained to be a nutritional therapist and runs her own consultancy in Elizabeth Harfleet Wellbeing, offering people natural solutions to their medical problems.

Amazingly, she was already advocating some of the remedies in How to Live 100 Years to her clients.

Despite her great interest in natural health and herbal remedies, Lillie clearly believed in the old saying, "A little of what you fancy..."

"She always had a jar of sweets in her cupboard and particularly enjoyed Farrah's Harrogate Toffee.

"She also had a soft spot for pastry and was partial to apple pie with a piece of cheese around midnight," says Elizabeth, who was just 14 when her great aunt died.

"I do remember that she was a very determined woman and one of her main aims was to live until she was 100, but I had no idea that she had bought a book to help her, which seems to have worked."

Although many of the ailments detailed in the book such as dropsy and cholera have been eliminated in this country, there are still many illnesses we share with the Victorians. PMT, influenza and, surprisingly obesity, are all referred to in Mr Robinson's book.

To download the book, visit www. howtolive100years.com


Natural cures from the book

Earache: Take as much black pepper as will lie on a sixpence, wrap it tightly in a small piece of cotton, moisten with sweet oil then insert in the ear and bandage the head.

PMT: Take horseradish, half a teacupful and one pint of good gin and take a tablespoon three times day.

Nose bleeds: A good remedy is simply to raise the person's arms.

Nervous headaches: Apply hot water to the temples and back of the neck.

Cuts: Do not put cobwebs on cuts…

Removing freckles: Make a paste of mustard and lemon juice and apply to the face four nights in succession. Wash off in the morning.