MEET SUPERMAN, AGED 97
ADECADE ago Charles Eugster decided it was time to get fit… seriously fit. Out of shape despite being a keen rower, he admits vanity drove him to approach a former Mr Universe for help to start bodybuilding. No mean feat given that Charles was 87 at the time.
“I told him, ‘I want a beach body. There are beautiful 70-year-old girls out there and I’d like to turn their heads,’” laughs Charles, a retired dentist who will be 98 in July. “I set out to lose the flab and acquire the kind of muscle many people my age assume to be an impossible task.”
He now boasts a glittering haul of 40 gold medals for rowing. And since taking up sprinting two years ago he now holds British and world records in his age group for that track event, and is a four-time world fitness champion.
Charles is leading an old-age revolution and has become a poster boy for the 10 million over-65s in the UK, three million of whom are in their 80s and beyond. He is adamant that exercise is one of three crucial factors for what he calls a successful old age, the other two being good nutrition and scrapping retirement to work for as long as our health allows.
Born in London in 1919, Charles is evangelical about ageing being a rewarding experience and insists that “now” is his best time. “Old age, as I’ve experienced, is one of the most fantastic periods of life,” he tells me on the phone from his home in Zurich. “It’s absolutely marvellous, it’s stupendous, it’s terrific, amazing, exciting!”
This enthusiasm is captured in his book Age Is Just A Number. Part autobiographical and part battle-cry to encourage others to adopt his attitude to growing old, it is as honest a read as it is uplifting, with lessons we could all learn. His wisdom is born of his own mistakes and heartaches and he is the first to admit he has not always been so effervescent or likeable.
In 1954, aged 35, Charles married his first wife Edda, with whom he had two sons.
THE same year, he opened his first dental practice in Switzerland. “In very simple terms it meant I could earn more money from my expertise by being the very best dentist that Zurich had to offer,” he says. “Over time, my client list came to boast film stars and artists, chairmen of the board, international investors and their families.
“But I was so immersed in being a dentist to the rich and famous and my business was so successful that in my 40s I got complacent. When I reached my 50s I was a horribly self-satisfied, balding lump of lard.
“There are some people who can ignore such a midlife transformation and others who wake up one day and don’t like what they see. Although there was nothing I could do about going bald I became determined to get in shape.”
Charles put himself through daily workouts only to end up seriously ill with TB, which required a six-month recuperation at an Alpine sanatorium. Eventually back in Zurich he threw himself into work once more, something he admits “may have played a part in the end of my marriage”.
Two years after his divorce from Edda, Charles met his second wife, Elsie, whom he describes as “the love of my second life”. He remembers, “I felt I had found my soulmate.”
Tragically Elsie was killed in a car accident with her best friend 15 years ago when Charles was 82. “It felt like I had died with her,” he says. “Whenever I looked into the future I could not see beyond a handful of bleak and final years. Life was dominated by what was no longer there. Alone in the house, and conscious that my body was failing me, I became convinced I would die at 85. I had little to live for, it seemed, and I duly began to wind down in preparation.”
Charles adds: “But you have to move on and find new interests. I have learned there are three things that are extremely important for a successful old age.
“Number one is work. Having an occupation is extremely important. Retirement is one of the worst things that has ever been designed by mankind. It’s a financial disaster and a health catastrophe.”
Yet millions of us dream of a retirement when we can kick back for our twilight years. What’s wrong with that? Charles, who remains an active fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, is emphatic in his response: “We stamp people with an expiry date of 65 which implies that beyond that we are rubbish.
“We should be recycling human beings, not encouraging them to retire. They can learn a new job, a new hobby, do something different. People need to understand what retirement really is: a chamber of horrors camouflaged as a holiday resort.
“It’s nothing more than voluntary or involuntary redundancy and we know that when people are unemployed they get mental problems and they have chronic disease.
“It’s extremely important to keep learning new things throughout our lives and to see age as opportunity, not an obstacle.
“Most people would consider being 97 to be a disadvantage but at the present time I consider it to be an enormous advantage. For starters I don’t think anyone would touch my new book if it wasn’t written by a 97-year-old.”
Charles’s sons, now 58 and 59, are planning for their “second lives” under their father’s watchful eye. He adds: “The eldest works in government, the younger one is an ophthalmologist and has started a clinic but he has mentioned that he would like to consider art in the future. I’m trying to push them to reconsider what their talents are so that they can one day retrain.”
Speaking of training, Charles is preparing to compete in the 60m sprint and long jump at the British an Masters Athletics Federation indoor championships in London next month. After that he will fly to South Korea for the World Masters Indoor Championships.
SO HAS he got the beach body yet? He laughs: “No! When I look at myself in the mirror and the lighting is OK and with sufficient imagination I look great. But in photographs with a lot of light I look a mess. Nevertheless the best thing about this decade has been rebuilding my body at the age of 90.
“This year I’d like to write a second book and think about developing some sort of institute for learning for older people.” For now, though, the gym beckons.
Charles Eugster started working out 10 years ago to get a ‘beach body’. He now has some fascinating views on ageing
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