Ageing with attitude: 103-year-old Bessie Nolan on the secret to staying young at heart

By 2030, one in six people worldwide will be aged 60 and over. Far from being over the hill, this group represents a population of vibrant people, living life to the full, and in some cases exceeding physical goals of those half their age

Bessie Nolan lived to be 106. She enjoyed daily cigarettes, her style, and walking into town to meet friends.  Picture: Alex Fagen

Bessie Nolan was 103 years old, enjoyed a couple of Superkings cigarettes a day and putting on the style to walk into town regularly to meet her friends. And she joked: “I think God forgot all about me. I’m not on the [death] register”.

The fun-loving Dubliner featured in a documentary called Older Than Ireland and was perfect subject matter for the weekly page in Feelgood titled Ageing With Attitude, which ran for over four years, from when I first began the column in 2014.

A great-grandmother, Bessie lived for another three years after that starring role, when God finally caught up with her in 2018.

Although many stand-out people were interviewed in over 200 pages of Ageing With Attitude, and a whole array of subjects were covered in relation to growing older, it was Bessie’s spunkiness — her sense of humour and joie de vivre after living over a century of life — that made such an impression on me, grappling as I was then, with ageing in my mere late 50s.

When the page launched, Feelgood editor Irene Feighan and myself thought it was timely to offer a platform for the over 55s, then considered “old”. But it soon became apparent that there was a wide population of vibrant people, decades beyond that, who had plenty to reveal about living life to the full, overcoming obstacles, and in some cases even exceeding physical goals of those half their age.

And why not? A recurrent point stressed by experts in gerontology interviewed was that people in the “second half of life” are not a homogenous group and should not be herded, as such, into an ageist “elderly” camp.

According to the World Health Organisation, by 2030, one in six people will be aged 60 and over. And with life expectancy increasing globally, the number of “oldest old” — 85 plus — is the fastest growing population segment in many countries.

One of the UN’s goals for its Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021-2030) is to tackle ageist attitudes that portray older people as being frail and a burden on society.

The diversity of individuals who told their stories in Ageing With Attitude defied such ageist stereotypes, including 62-year-old transgender woman, Kellie Maloney (who was former boxing promoter Frank); married couple Kay and Joe O’Regan, who celebrated their 80th birthdays running their final marathon together; Sligo-based Vera Power, who at 77 was the longest-surviving single lung transplant recipient in the world, three decades after her surgery, and 64-year-old Mrs Brown’s Boys actress Eilish O’Carroll, who revealed that, with divorces from two husbands behind her, she was now in a loving relationship with a woman.

Ageism in the language we use and in how the media portrays older people through words and imagery was inevitably discussed in the column over the years. But what about being ageist towards ourselves? Research featured by Becca Levy, a professor of psychology at Yale University, suggested that if we ourselves have a negative attitude towards ageing, we may shorten our lifespan by seven and a half years.

This, and other research, seems to exhibit that our attitude to our life is a big player in how we live it out — and although that arguably applies to all stages of life, when older people are faced with societal ageism, having that self-positivity would appear to be a driving force influencing us mentally, physically, and emotionally.

It helped, in this context, to tell readers that in most cases, 25% of our health and longevity is down to genetics and 75% to lifestyle — a self-empowering message to those of us who had felt hopelessly predestined to follow familial patterns.

With our theme of ‘ageing with attitude’, we aimed to encourage, inform, and inspire our readers each week to take the reins with a positive attitude. And, with life expectancy increasing by two and a half years per decade, to live our lives as healthily as possible.

Expert advice that cropped up constantly about achieving that included eating a balanced diet, exercising regularly, having a purpose, staying socially active, managing our stress and our sleeping habits, abstaining from smoking, drinking alcohol moderately, volunteering in the community, and challenging the brain with novelty.

This is advice that all adults could take on board. But for those of us running out of roundy birthdays, there is the poignant realisation that our days and weeks are even more precious and the longer we can stay healthy on all levels — to take a leaf from Bessie’s book — the longer God might keep us off the register.