I ended up caring for my 75-year-old son at 102

MARGARET GILBERT, 102 from Colchester, Essex

MARGARET lives in a bungalow three doors down from her sister Joan, 97. Their brother, George, meanwhile, is a relative youngster at just 87.

Genes clearly play a part in the Gilbert siblings’ longevity, but so, perhaps, does a healthy childhood. Theirs was an outdoor life, says Margaret, and a diet that would now be considered very good for you, though back then existed more by force of circumstance than choice.

‘My father was a telephone engineer who used to climb up all the poles. We used to eat a lot of vegetables that he grew himself; we were brought up on those. They were always very fresh.’

Margaret remembers playing outdoors all day. After leaving school at 14, she worked for a local seed and nursery company, picking and grading seeds and growing sweet peas to show, which was ‘quite physical work’ too.

Margaret married George, a bricklayer, in 1936, and they had one son, Richard.

Sadly, the family’s long-living genes were not passed down. Richard died of cancer this year, at the age of 75, having lived at home with Margaret all his life.

At the end, despite her own age, she became his carer.

‘I have my good days and my bad now,’ she says. ‘I do miss him. But I seldom see the doctor myself and I’m not on any heavy medication.’

Her own carer comes in for 12 hours a week. ‘That’s how you enjoy life at my age,’ says Margaret. ‘Just chatting to people and seeing the neighbours.’