The BBC's John Simpson hit the headlines this week after saying he would prefer to take his own life than face serious illness in old age. The 67-year-old foreign correspondent is taking part in a new BBC series looking at the lives of older people. But what about very old people? There are 12,000 people in the UK over 100, a number set to rise as medicine advances. What is the reality of an 11th decade? Hetty Bower, 106, and Peggy Megarry, 100, live in the same residential care home. They talk to Susanna Rustin.
Susanna Rustin: Did you ever imagine living so long?
Hetty Bower: Good gracious, no! I come from a very large family – I had seven sisters so we were eight girls, and two brothers. All of them but me have gone. I wasn't the youngest, so why it is I don't know. My mother was a seventh child and I am my mother's seventh child, so I'm the seventh child of a seventh child. But I don't feel lucky, no I don't, although I was fortunate in having parents who loved each other.
SR: What is life like here?
Peggy Megarry: Well, in the morning you hope someone will arrive to put your stockings on, and your bedroom slippers, and they take you to the loo and after that you wash, they help you, and after that you have breakfast, which is brought to me in my room I'm glad to say. I don't enjoy group meals, there's a lot of chatter. I try to get out every afternoon because one tends to put on weight here with the diet.
SR: Do you enjoy your food?
HB: I wouldn't say I enjoy it. I eat because it's necessary. You get hungry if you don't eat and that's not pleasant. But I can't say I long for my meals – no, not now.
PM: I don't enjoy the stodgy puddings, I just eat salad a lot of the time. I enjoy Chinese food, but in China my mother would never let the cook make a Chinese meal. The first time we had a new cook, for lunch we were given roast chicken on a large plate with apple pie and custard! My mother had to explain they were two different courses.
SR: Do you think often about the past?
PM: Oh yes, at night in bed I think of chunks of the past, a long way back. It depends what my mind is centred on, but there are plenty of memories. I had an amah [nanny], you see, in China; she looked after me and we all loved our amahs more than our mothers. Friends who grew up in China all say that.
SR: You've got more experience of life than most people. What have been the best times?
PM: I enjoyed bits of boarding school, funnily enough. We had a good art teacher. She sent my paintings to London. I'd done a sheet of Chinese costumes and some arts society was kind enough to buy it. They sent me a guinea and said it would be in their permanent collection. Then I left that school because we were coming to England.
HB: I wouldn't say I have a best time, but the most important person in my life was Reg, my husband. I joined the Labour party, and in 1931 when I came back from holiday I was given a little batch of leaflets with the names of people who had applied. I was told to go and meet them, give them a warm welcome. And among them was a certain Reg Bower. My first reaction when I saw him was: what a pity he isn't a Jew, because he was very pleasant-looking and you couldn't help but respond to that smile! We were married 69 years.
SR: Did you celebrate turning 100?
PM: I got my telegram from the Queen and also a telegram from the minister for work and pensions, so that was a surprise. Ha ha! We had a party, but after the invitations went out the council demanded we replace the kitchen, so from then on it was chaos. But they let us have the party in the dining room.
HB: It was here. It was great fun and several people have said, "If ever you forget how old you are, just ask me, because I arrived on the date of your 100th birthday."
SR: Is it hard work staying cheerful?
HB: Oh crumbs, it never occurs to me to think if it's hard work. I just think it wouldn't be very pleasant to go around with a [pulls a sour face]. One likes to be pleasant for other people to look at, so I do tend to sometimes look like a Cheshire cat. But once you make real friends, people you can discuss things with – books, music – you're knitting a life, and I've done that with many people who are now no longer alive, and you miss your friends once they go. I have very few people now who were here when I came, or who came soon after me. On the other hand, there are a few people who came because I'm here, because it's nice for them to know someone.
PM: I can still read books. When I heard Barry Unsworth had died I looked in the bookshelves and found his book that won the Booker [Sacred Hunger], so I'm well into that now.
HB: That's what I envy! I can't read, my vision is so poor I can only read with a magnifying glass, and it's very laborious. I listen to the radio, and when I go to stay with my daughters they read to me.
SR: What would you change, if you could?
PM: I wish I could go through the gates and walk. I feel like a prisoner. I can walk along a road but I don't know north London at all – that's the only snag. My last fall will be three years ago at Christmas, but it's the rule of the house that unless I'm with a helper I mustn't go out.
HB: Why did you come here, Peggy?
PM: My son thought I needed more help. I felt if I could manage my weekly trip to Lidl, where I got all the bargains, I could have stayed at home. But the last time I went there it was quite a job. I came here on 4 June 2007. Before that I lived in Southfields for 31 years.
HB: I don't feel stuck here – I'm very fortunate to have a place like this. We have a lovely garden. But I miss not being able to read a newspaper. I was a Guardian reader and [my daughter] Margaret reads me the important things, but I can't expect her to read every word. And yet I'm happy, because my mind is still functioning.
SR: Do you hope to live much longer?
HB: No, I do not. I really hope I don't make another birthday. There doesn't seem much purpose. I know that Margaret and her sister Celia could live fuller lives if I wasn't here.
PM: Well, I feel 100 was a goal I'd set and now I've got there, what next, for goodness sake? I'm very interested in art. I painted until I couldn't hold the brush, and I used to take the bus to the West End galleries, where I thoroughly enjoyed life. That's how I spent my time, art was my main interest. I'd like to be taken out to Cork Street to tour the galleries more than anything.
Hetty Bower and Peggy Megarry live at the Mary Feilding Guild home in north London. Hetty Bower appears in How to Live Beyond 100 on BBC1, 9 July, 10.35pm.
