Tess Adamakos
October 29th, 2018
Badass Grandma Gets 16 Tattoos After Husband Dies
Glenys the Menace, the 77-year-old tattoo lover and rebellious great-grandmother, spends $3,000 of her pension pot on fresh ink.
77-year-old Glenys “the Menace” Coope is not your ordinary old-age pensioner. She saves up her pension money so she can afford to get a new tattoo every few months.
Coope’s first set of tattoos started in the 1960s, where she got two hearts on her neck, two swallows on her hands, and a devil and a rose on her back in 1964. However her husband, Walter, had disapproved of her body art, so she removed them in 1985.
Walter has passed, and the now widowed grandmother-of-five, and great-grandmother-of-three, has a tribute tattoo for him on her chest. But she also has sixteen more since his passing.
She also sports an alien vampire and Medusa, and has her arms, chest, and back tattooed.
“I’ve spent £2,000 but it’s been worth every penny,” Coope said. “I’m proud of them and I like them. I’ll get a few more but I won’t have loads. I want a werewolf on my back and then I’ll leave it for a little bit.”
The couple had been married for 54 years.
Coope said, “After he died I felt that this was something I wanted to do for myself.”
Glenys the Menace had gotten a love heart with Walter’s name on her chest, to cope with her grief.
Coope has been a devoted wife, stay-at-home mother, and gracious grandmother for her family. And now, she frankly doesn’t give a shit about what people think about her ink.
“People don’t say anything. They just look at me,” Coope said. “”At the end of the day, to be quite honest, I don’t give a toss.”
Coope visits a local tattoo shop in Derby, England, called Octopus Tattoo Studio. The shop’s owner, Gerry Carnelly, does all of her tattoos.
Glenys’ sister, Pearl, was inspired to get her own tattoo after “seeing Glenys’ love affair with inkings.” Pearl, age 84, has a bee tattoo on her leg.
Glenys encourages all older folk to consider getting a tattoo. “I’d tell anyone thinking about getting one to go ahead and get one. It doesn’t matter what other people think,” she said. “I’m living life to its limits. I won’t let my age put me down.”
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