100-year-old bar owner still going

DAREDEVIL WHO STILL DANCES

Marie-Louise Wirth wouldn’t dream of giving up her bar in northern France, even though many of the 100-year-old’s regulars have passed away.

The tall, blue-eyed proprietor, known to locals as Marie-Lou, also has seen little reason to modernise the brick-fronted tavern with lace curtains in the town of Isbergues, near the Belgian border.

“It’s been like this for 50 years,” Wirth said, wiping the same art deco countertop she did as a 14-year-old when she began working in the bar for her father back in 1931.

“They’re all surprised there’s no beer pump or coffee machine, but they don’t remember the old days, because there wasn’t a beer pump or a coffee machine,” says the sprightly centenarian.

The tiny bar – only about 20 square metres – has no name.

“If you have good beer you don’t need a name,” says Wirth, who likewise has no use for the internet, a cellphone or credit card.

Never married and childless, Wirth took over the establishment when her father died in 1954 and she was 37.

But the country has seen a sharp decline in bars since their heyday in the 1960s, when they numbered around 600 000, a figure that has shrunk to fewer than 35 000 today.

Wirth recalls when Isbergues, which now has a population of about 10 000, was home to a steelworks with 6 000 workers.

Wirth opens the bar at 8.15 every morning, sipping a glass of cherry brandy with her first customer. Hale and hearty, she calls herself a “little curiosity” who cannot explain her longevity.

“Only God knows but he doesn’t speak to me!” The secret couldn’t be in her diet, she says: “I eat everything I shouldn’t. But I don’t have cholesterol! I live like someone who’s 60 years old. I go out a lot. I like to go dancing. I don’t mind coming home at 2am and waking up at 7.30.”

And Wirth takes risks that may seem ill-advised for a person of such an advanced age. Her best friend, Marie-Claire Legrand, confirms that she took up the challenge of a treetop adventure course in the French Caribbean in 2013, and that the two of them have been up in a hot-air balloon.

“I’m a daredevil!” Wirth exclaims.

Regulars at her bar are becoming fewer – but she vows to keep going as long as she can. – AFP

If you have good beer you don’t need a name.