Learning to play the cello keeps retired surgeon’s brain sharp

FOR Averil Mansfield, 81, retirement is ‘a time to stop being quite such a responsible person and start to concentrate on what gives you pleasure in life’.

Since leaving full-time work as a consultant vascular surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, West London, 16 years ago Averil’s taken on challenge after challenge, including charity work and — her biggest love of all — learning to play the cello.

‘I had a fantastic career in surgery, but I think it’s wise not to carry on after a certain age,’ she says.

‘I’d seen that doctors who took on something else in retirement were very much better off than those who sat around in their slippers.

‘ It seems that quality of life in these later years is about achieving new things, having a new outlook, and also making new friends.’

Having been the UK’s first female professor of surgery, in 1991, Averil was not short of calls on her time after retiring. A five-year stint as Chairman of the Stroke Association followed by a year’s presidency of the British Medical Association were brain-engaging enough. But it’s learning the cello — taking her first lesson at 65 — that has proved the most rewarding for her. Averil (left) was, it must be said, pretty good at music to begin with, having passed grade eight (the highest level) piano as a schoolgirl. ‘I didn’t have to learn what the notes meant, thankfully, but learning was still tough,’ she says. ‘Much tougher than I’d ever found learning the piano.’

She almost gave up after five years — but persevered, and now sits ‘on the back row of a wonderful amateur orchestra’, something she’d always wanted to do. ‘It is very much the fulfilment of a dream,’ Averil says.

And it’s not just about the music. ‘It’s hard to meet new people in your 60s and 70s. That’s also been a great part of it for me — to make new friends.’

Averil’s general health is good, though the upper body and finger strength needed to play — and carry around — the cello can sometimes test her. ‘At 65, I was fit and could carry it easily, now I’m over 80 it’s a bit harder to get it home.

‘As I get older, I feel stiffness in my fingers more, and one day it won’t be physically possible to play the cello. If I were 65 now and considering taking up a new instrument . . . perhaps the viola, it’s much lighter!’

Her mind is still extraordinary: ‘I’m convinced learning something like this is hugely beneficial to your brain. It keeps it sharp by making it work.’