TODAY’S picture is a modest ‘still life’ marking an auspicious day in the life of a favourite aunt.
Born, like the late Queen, when George V was still on the throne, she was a toddler during the abdication crisis and a child during the war.
In the decade when she was born, the average life expectancy for women was a little over 60, so as a young woman she could hardly have expected to be toasting this day with a slap-up Indian meal, cabernet sauvignon and chocolate cake.
But by the late 80s there were 200,000 people in the 90s club and today the figure is three times that.
We’re out and about in that part of North Kent which was swallowed up into Greater London in 1965 and where my aunt has spent her married adult life.
It’s more than 600 miles from the tiny Scottish fishing village which was home to her parents, but both of them were Salvation Army officers and always on the move.
Religion has always played a powerful role in small fishing communities where jobs are dangerous and so reliant on nature and perhaps it should come as no surprise that the Salvation Army was swelled by recruits from such places, even if their mission was often to bring succour to the poor and homeless of Britain’s big cities.
The “battle” began on the streets of East London in 1865 when Methodists William and Catherine Booth abandoned the traditional concept of a church pulpit to take God’s word directly to the most vulnerable and marginalised people.
Their work included setting up shelters for people who were homeless, running soup kitchens, helping people living in the slums and setting up rescue homes for women fleeing domestic abuse and prostitution.
As the youngest of three daughters, my aunt recalls a childhood of disruption and new beginnings as her parents travelled the country performing their Army duties, from Camberwell, Peckham and Nunhead in London to distant cities like Sheffield and Norwich.
Born in the 1890s and married in 1917 in the local Salvation Army hall, they both died in London, in 1962 and 1979 respectively. But then one of the penalties of living to a grand old age is to lose so many of your nearest and dearest along the way: her eldest sister in 1979, middle sister in 2014 and beloved husband in 2017, after more than 60 years of marriage.
But she is straight-talking and unsentimental, with a laconic sense of humour that has survived the passing decades. A talented pianist and supremely efficient PA, her fingers must have formed a million shorthand outlines and hundreds of glorious tunes in a household that was once always filled with music.
Raising a glass of cabernet, she chuckles over past adventures and expresses regret that she may not now be able to revisit the beautiful Scottish fishing village which has played such an important part in her life, and where her parents’ graves can be found, high on a cliff looking out over the Moray Firth.
But the moment passes and for now, there’s still plenty to toast. All those happy memories, for a start – of friends and family, outings and adventures – and the simple luxury of being well enough to still get out and about at 90…
