Postcards from the Edge
A French study reveals that friends, exercise and a few treats are key to a long, happy old age,
We oldies all have one thing in common, I think: we’d like to live as well as we can for as long as we can.
With that in mind, a French ‘seniormagazine’ journalist, Olivier Calon, recently interviewed a group of French oldies between the ages of 96 and 104 just to examine what it took to be a fulfilled centenarian, or near-centenarian.
There is an increase in centenarians everywhere these days, but they’re still only 0.05 per cent of the French population – so they are a biological elite.
Some useful advice emerges in Calon’s book Les Enfants du Siècle, published this spring. For Colette Maze, aged 104, the recipe is ‘red wine, chocolate – and four hours’ piano practice a day’ – and recording her first piano CD at age 86, and her fourth aged 104. For Hélène Bordeaux, aged 98, it’s involvement with her ten children and 100 descendants.
For retired teacher Jeanne Le Breüs, aged 98, it’s being continually busy in retirement. For Bernard Ores, 96 and a Jewish survivor of the concentration camps, it’s been achieving serenity and remembering the crime while not hating the executioners.
Sporting engagement for a veteran athlete, gym visits – and campaigning against torture – for cheerful, unmarried twin sisters, aged 97; and, for a 96-yearold priest, the importance of continued social engagement, are all recommended.
Maybe predictably, yet usefully, activity wherever possible, self-reliance for as long as possible, and an appreciation of life’s improvements are key factors in a satisfying very old age.
What’s fascinating is where the French experience of a century differs from a British version – and where experiences and values are shared. For the French, the Second World War is remembered in terms of occupation, forced labour in Germany for men, witnessing the Gestapo examine school rolls for Jewish names, or seeing children of collaborators ostracised.
Other vignettes, too, are uniquely French. In 1956, a law was introduced which banned alcohol to children under 14. The wine-producers were outraged!
Some cultural experiences are much the same. Jeanne, the teacher, remembers left-handed children – ‘gaucheurs’ – being forced to write with their right hands until the 1970s. Biro pens were banned until 1965 (I remember that). Children walked to school alone (sometimes up to four miles) and played out of doors.
And if a child was punished at school, she’d get another slap from her mother for being naughty at school: nowadays, the parents are more likely to complain if their darling is penalised.
Hard times are recalled: no inside toilets; food rationing until 1950; few washing machines until the late 1950s. And while oldies are thankful for improvements in life, a sense of community solidarity, which once seemed to exist, is sometimes missed.
All oldies are survivors, and some have survived tough challenges. Colette, the pianist, was a single mother in 1949 and felt the full blast of social exclusion. Marie- Thérèse, now 104, lost her father at Verdun, her mother from Spanish flu, and was orphaned at four, and, as a mother herself, had painful childbirth experiences. But they came through, and the resilient centenarians, whether here or in France, can bring insight to us all.
Should we use metric or imperial measures and weights in everyday measurements?
The metric system has been taught in British schools for 50 years, but there’s still inconsistency in weights, volume and distances. Food can be in kilos and litres, but pound equivalents are also available. The pub ‘pint’ survives, colloquially.
Diet language is still imperial: the dieter still boasts that she has ‘lost four stone’, rather than 25.4012 kilograms. Height is still often described informally in feet, not metres: a tall person is still six feet tall, not 1.8288 metres. And most people count distances in miles, not kilometres.
The British Weights and Measurements Association has had to warn councils in England not to ‘bamboozle’ pedestrians with kilometre-only signs. Bournemouth, of all places – considering its reputation for sheltering oldies – had decided to use metric-only signage, as they felt that was ‘in line with a national trend’.
But what’s wrong with being flexible and using both imperial and metric? In Ireland, the signage is in kilometres, but people often convert that in their head to miles, accommodating both systems.
Little things often say a lot.
Our local pier in Deal has had the practice, for some years, of flying a bank of European flags. That’s welcoming for visitors from Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries; and, for some reason, Greece also featured.
But in spring I noticed Commonwealth flags often replaced the European ones. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa fluttered on the poles alongside the flag of St George. Is this a political statement, or a straw in the wind?