On Thursday, the Queen celebrates her 90th birthday after 64 years of running the royal show. On 10 June, her official birthday this year, her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, turns 95. Neither appear to be significantly slowing down. The Queen still embarks on royal visits, rides a horse, endures state banquets, walks nimbly backwards (from the Cenotaph), dresses stylishly and generally confounds the notion that ageing is one long continual slide into senility, if the Grim Reaper doesn’t claim you in your middle years.
The Queen does, of course, have certain advantages when it comes to ageing. Income and class help. According to the charity Age UK, life expectancy at 60 for those from a higher income bracket is 23.3 years; those living on a lower income are likely to live almost six years less.
Nevertheless, once the Queen passed her 85th birthday, she joined the fastest growing group in the population. In the UK, 2.6 million people are aged over 80, a number that is predicted to rise to 4.8 million by 2030. But while poverty and neglect are issues for some, many are happy with their lot.
“It’s a complete fallacy that the majority of the ‘older old’ are in their bath chairs and lonely,” says Carol Jagger, 64, professor of the epidemiology of ageing at Newcastle University, who is involved in a study of 200 people aged over 85 in the Newcastle area. “A minority were lonely, but that was to do with widowhood and it got better over time.”
The study began in 2006 and is soon to look again at the group, now aged 95. Many, irrespective of income, are independent, scoring high in 17 activities, including cutting their own toenails, dressing and walking. Half take exercise for enjoyment, 20% are involved in clubs and hobbies, and 10% help others.
“What also matters is that they are firmly connected to family and friends,” says Jagger. “In ageing, adding life to years is what counts.”
In the 1900s, only 4% of the population was 60 or over. Now, partly the result of better lifestyles and medical progress, half the children born at the millennium will become centenarians. But there is a difference between surviving to 90 and beyond, dealing with cruel and invasive chronic diseases, and passing those milestones living well. So what makes that difference?
The New England Centenarian Study, established in the US in 1995, is studying 1,600 centenarians and 107 super centenarians (110-plus). It has concluded that between 25% and 30% of the factors influencing longevity come from “good genes”.
When Agnes Brinkley, aged 96, was interviewed in 2010 with six of her eight siblings (the youngest aged 79), she put the secret succinctly: “None of us have [walking] canes.” Or, to put it another way, it is not so much what you do as a nonagenarian, more how you have lived.
Joan Gray, who lives alone in Chelmsford, Essex, shares her birthday with the Queen and will also turn 90 on Thursday. “I’m being boastful now but a lot of people say, ‘You don’t look 90’. I used to work out on the land a bit before I got married, and I’ve always had an outdoor life.”
Gray also thinks the secret to staying young is “not to be shut in all the time”. For the last five years she has been meeting up with other people of a similar age using the services of Contact the Elderly, a charity that arranges afternoon teas. “I think helping and working with people does help, you hear their problems and you think, well I’m glad I’m not in that state, although you might be ill yourself.”
In the US, since 2002, Dan Buettner, author and National Geographic fellow, working with a team of international academics, has identified five places in the world dubbed blue zones, where people not only live the longest lives but the happiest and healthiest too – the Nuoro province of Sardinia; the Japanese island of Okinawa; the Nicoya peninsula, Costa Rica; Loma Linda, California, home of vegetarian, non-smoking, non-drinking Seventh-day Adventists; and the Greek island of Ikaria.
Buettner describes the case of Stamatis Moraitis who, in his 60s, was told in the US that he had terminal cancer. He returned to his birthplace, Ikaria, to die. Decades later, aged 97, he told Buettner that he travelled back to the US in his 80s to ask his doctors why his lung cancer “went away”. He got no response because, Moraitis says: “My doctors were all dead.”
In Ikaria, the people eat simple, mostly plant-based food, sleep late and nap in the afternoon (a nap three days a week results in a 37% reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease), walk the many hills, drink herbal teas rich in antioxidants, enjoy sex and red wine and are engaged in the community and see a convivial meaning to life.
Buettner has now established 20 blue-zone cities in the US, totalling 5 million people. The first to be set up, in 2009, was Albert Lea, Minnesota. The project required that 20% of citizens, 50% of employers, 25% of restaurants, 25% of schools and 25% of grocery stores sign up for a year. Parks and public spaces were improved; smoking and junk food discouraged; schools forbade eating on the move; giving something back was encouraged.
Buettner says: “The programme focuses on making the healthy choice the easy choice. We address the environment, not just the individual.”
In the first year, the population of Albert Lea shed 12,000 pounds, healthcare costs dropped by 40% and, it was predicted, citizens added 2.9 good quality years on average to their lives – improvements that continue.
What also figures in the original five blue zones is the way society is organised. Esteeming older age is the norm. “The older you get, the more wisdom you are credited with,” Buettner says.
Harry Leslie Smith, 93, is author of a number of books, including the passionate Harry’s Last Stand, a defence of the welfare state. He lives in Canada and West Yorkshire and did not begin to write until he was in his 70s.
Did he feel his wisdom was valued?
“Many younger people do, perhaps because I remind them of their father or grandfather,” he says. “But the knowledge that older people have is sometimes treated as if it has no value. Sometimes, I can’t believe I was born nearly 100 years ago. My greatest fear is that we are going backwards. Growing old is a lonely ride. You lose friends and there is no one left from the past – but that’s life.”
He began life with very little, he says. “Climbing the mountain. It’s how I imagined it would be. Wonderful.”
The essence of that joy is too often missed because of the negative connotations associated with what is called “the ageing society”. Maturing society might be more apt. The Queen at 90 is a regal example of living better for longer. On the throne, she couldn’t have more advantages or be more visible as a nonagenarian. But like Patricia Routledge, still acting at 87, or Diana Athill, still writing at 98, all are treated as exceptions.
“Exceptionalism is itself a form of benevolent ageism,” says Thomas Scharf, professor of social gerontology at Newcastle University. “It makes the very much older person who is active seem a breed apart, but they are only older versions of us.
“Older people are regarded as a burden on society, yet the evidence shows civic life is sustained by engaged, much older people. Without them, the rest of us would be even more atomised and work would dominate life even more strongly than it already does.”
Stephen Burke, founder of the charity United For All Ages, points out the importance of the intergenerational connection. Many of those under 25, and those over 75, are facing a very tough future. “I talk to young people and to those who are much older and they face similar issues on transport, housing, mental health. The people in positions of influence are aged 30 to 60. They need to see society through the eyes of their children and their parents.”
Whatever the challenges – and growing old in a time of cuts can be grim – there is something compelling about the simplicity of the message of how to enjoy life at 90: look after yourself and those you love, and do something for others. As Athill writes in a poem in the conclusion to her latest memoir, Alive, Alive Oh!: “Why want anything more marvellous/than what is.”
Additional reporting by Rebecca Ratcliffe
HOW TO LIVE TO 100
Money in the bank helps, but if you are overfed, underactive and stressed, that can negate the impact of affluence.
Stay lean, eat “clean” Avoid processed food, eat little meat and more olive oil, fruit and vegetables; drink good coffee and wine.
Don’t smoke
Be extrovert Stay active; “give back”; remain connected to family and friends.
Motherhood post-40 A woman who has a child naturally beyond 40 has a four times greater chance of living to 100 compared with one who does not – a possible indication that her reproductive system is ageing slowly and so the rest of her body is as well.
Male siblings of centenarians are 17 times more likely to reach 100. Female siblings have an 8.5 times greater chance than their peers of reaching a century.
Resilience The ability to bounce back from serious disease, such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, obviously helps.
Good genes Between 25% and 30% of longevity is attributable to the quality of your genes.
Source: New England Centenarian Study
