Heavy Drinking and the Over 80s

I think there's a lot of panicking these days about certain habits. People aren't meant to go out in the sun for fear of skin cancer. Aren't meant to smoke for fear of lung cancer. Aren't meant to drink much for fear of high blood pressure or heart disease or liver disease.

For all I know it's all very good advice. But I have to say, particularly with regard to drinking, that I seem to know an awful lot of people my age and older who drink like fish and are still in pretty good condition.

I have a book somewhere in which Churchill wrote that he drank at every meal and on all occasions in between. He smoked cigars too, almost all the time. Obviously, he wasn't a man who believed the saying "All things in moderation". He had a couple of strokes, it's true, but he lived to be 91. I saw him (and photographed him) in Washington DC after the war and he seemed pretty hale and hearty.

I can almost say the same for my partner? boyfriend? - I never know how to refer to him - who drinks at least 4 pints of beer a day and is nearly 86. He's not hale and hearty perhaps but he's perfectly on the ball, lives entirely independently, follows the news avidly, and motor racing, has a social life and sees his daughter and grandchildren every week.

Most of my other friends, some younger, some older than me, drink regularly too. I can't see the point of worrying too much about it at my age. I like white wine and I like a drink with lunch sometimes and a few glasses with dinner, always. On my 80th birthday I had a party and around 30 of us drank champagne all evening. Friends returning to Guildford from holiday in France brought two cases and others bought champagne along too.  It was a lovely evening and the champagne went very well with all the food my younger daughter prepared.

My two daughters sometimes say they're worried about drinking - we all like wine - but I tell them that I've been drinking for 60 years and so far haven't come to much harm. Back in the 1950s, we all drank cocktails and martinis all the time. The girls' father was stationed in Washington DC with the Royal Air Force so we lived there for some years and the RAF lifestyle in America after the war was all about partying and drinking! I have a lot of photos of those days and in every one of them the girls' father has a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. In his case, sadly, the cigarettes did get him and he died in 1968, in his late fifties. However, he loved drinking and smoking and wouldn't have wanted to give up even if we'd had all the constant rather nagging health advice we get these days.

In the 60s, back in England, in Surrey, we drank sherry and gin (and babycham? - can hardly remember babycham but I think my elder daughter sometimes drank it as a teenager). And later on, in the 70s I suppose, once people really started going on holiday to France and Italy, Malta and Spain, we all started drinking wine.

Two male friends of mine died during 2010. They were both over 90 and both liked a drink. I'm sure health advisers would tut tut and say it's best to avoid drinking more than whatever is the medically preferred weekly limit. Perhaps they're right. But presumably there are lots of factors dictating what will and won't harm us because otherwise probably none of us would live to be 80 or 90. I had two brushes with cancer in my 60s (bladder cancer) and I haven't smoked since. The surgeon told me he's never had a patient with bladder cancer who hadn't smoked. But since I like a glass of wine, or several, and I've already lived to be 81 and a bit, I'll take my chances with alcohol and keep on drinking. I won't go as far as Churchill did and drink on every possible occasion but I'll stick to my glass of wine with lunch and a couple of glasses with dinner.