The secret to living longer
Last updated 14:10, Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Four apples, a bag of carrots and a carton of milk. Could these be the key to answering one of Cumbria’s most intriguing mysteries – why people in Greystoke live longer than those anywhere else in the county?
Cumbria Primary Care Trust’s annual report reveals that life expectancy for residents of this picturesque village, five miles west of Penrith, is a pension-stretching 93. The UK average is 79.
And healthy living starts early here, on the evidence of the fruit and milk on a wall in Greystoke primary school’s playground. They are left there every morning, courtesy of generous villagers.
Another box is ticked by abundant evidence of exercise as various balls bounce off various walls. Football, rugby, tennis and basketball are all represented by some of the school’s 50 pupils. This summer the playground will be transformed by a Lottery grant into a climbing area, a pond, a planting area and an outdoor classroom. Many Greystoke children will move on to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Penrith, which has the best GCSE results in Cumbria.
“Greystoke is a great place,” says headteacher Jeanette Matthews. “There’s a lot of community spirit. Everybody, whether they’re young or old, joins in the community events at Christmas, sports day, things like that.”
In the village shop and Post Office there’s a temptation to look for Elixir of Youth alongside the Nurofen and Sudafed. “We sell more fresh fruit and veg than packaged stuff,” says counter clerk Barbara Smith. “They never buy a shepherd’s pie in Greystoke. They make it.”
Sub-postmistress Annette Jackson reports that the children of Greystoke do buy sweets, “but they always run it off.”
What about the impact of the outside world on Greystoke? “There’s no stress here,” suggests Barbara. “There’s no mobile phone signal and maybe that helps. Who knows what effect holding a mobile to your head does?”
The statistics about longevity leap off the page and into the queue at the Post Office counter. Esme Hayton has spent most of his 86 years in Greystoke, apart from five years of wartime service. After that he was head forester at Greystoke Castle. How does Esme account for his longevity? “I have a nip of whisky every night. And it’s a gay good ’un.”
“If they take any more buses off you’ll be walking to Penrith,” observes a lady who declines to reveal her age, except to say that she is approaching the vintage of her 86-year-old friend.
Waiting at the bus stop for a trip to Penrith is Bill Carrick, a mere 85. During his working life Bill was a farm worker, a gypsum miner and a gardener.
“I still do gardening, for yen or two old folk,” he explained. “I walk every day, round and about, two or three mile.”
Bill does not seem unduly concerned about whether he will make it to Greystoke’s lucky number, 93. “When your time comes, you go.”
And, like Esme Hayton, the occasional tipple does not appear to have done him any harm. “An old fella has to have a pint. You’d dry out.”
Banging your head on a ceiling beam in the Boot and Shoe might be the biggest risk to life in Greystoke. Jan Mandale, who runs the pub with husband Bill, says: “People here look out for those who live on their own. And if you live in a city you tend to vegetate. Older people here stay active.”
On the road out of Greystoke to the north the chirruping of birds is all that breaks the cool clear air. A man who looks like Father Christmas in a cloth cap is raking his garden. A grey-haired neighbour in a baseball cap is mowing his lawn, bending and twisting with balletic grace.
Rosemary and Bill White moved to Greystoke last summer. Bill is rector of the village church, St Andrew’s. In the churchyard the number of gravestones for people who died in their 80s is striking. “They say a village needs five things to prosper,” says Rosemary. “A Post Office, a pub, a school, a village hall and a church, and Greystoke has them all. Several families here go back generations. That might help with long life – having someone to talk to.”
It’s a handsome place, cradled by fells, old stone houses encircling a village green, jockeys from the village’s stables trotting through every morning. So nice that house prices average somewhere in the £300,000 region.
Many young people have to move away to Penrith or Carlisle with many retired people moving in. For children growing up in Greystoke today the question is not just will they live to be 93? It’s will they be able to live in Greystoke?
Early afternoon in the Wine Cellar on Moss Bay Road, Workington, 30 miles along the A66 from Greystoke. “Eight yellows, please.”
Eight yellows turns out to be an eight-pack of Castlemaine XXXX lager. The customer, a middle-aged woman, also buys a couple of two-litre bottles of cider.
Cars crawl down Moss Bay Road, wary of the mountainous speed bumps. The black-painted shell of Corus steelworks, which closed last year, looms on the far side of the road. Back down the hill, near Workington Zebras rugby ground, are the sites of former coal mines.
Terry McNicholas, 59, has lived in Moss Bay all his life. Now retired, and relaxing in Moss Bay Working Men’s Club with a pint of John Smiths, he used to work in the steelworks and on building sites. “The heavy industry might have been why people die sooner. It used to be three-score year and 10. At least it’s surpassed that.”
A cluster of drinkers sits in the corner by the jukebox. “I’m 92,” says Paul Cook. Closer investigation reveals that he is 52. “If I get to 52 I’ll be doing well,” says a friend. “The way I’m feeling I doubt I’ll see tomorrow.” Do the people of Moss Bay tend to take much exercise? “Aye, 12 pints then a lap round the pool table.”
“You see a lot of people walking round the slag banks,” says Paul. “If you walk to the town and back that’s a good hike from here.”
A quick survey reveals that about 60 per cent of the club’s regulars smoke, compared with a national average of 24 per cent. Microwave meals and tatie pots are mentioned as popular foods. Paul is not convinced that such things have a major effect on life expectancy. “Industry’s the main thing. While this was all industry, in Greystoke they were having their rabbit pie.”
Ann Holmes, secretary of Moss Bay Village Residents’ Group, says: “I’ve never been to Greystoke but I assume there’s a lot of retired people come from cities that haven’t really done a hard day’s job in their life.
"The majority of men here have worked in the steelworks or the pits. That’s bound to have a detrimental effect. My dad’s 80. He worked at the iron works at Chapel Banks. He’s got a lot of respiratory problems. The people I know haven’t lived much past 70.”
Ann feels that Moss Bay’s older people have it hard before and after retirement. “You get a lot of anti-social behaviour. That causes stress among the old folk. They work hard then when they retire they have to contend with that.
“There’s definitely less of a community spirit than when I moved here 35 years ago. We’ve lost a lot of local shops. Teddy Elliott’s greengrocer’s shut down eight or nine years ago. I buy less fruit and veg now. I go shopping at the supermarket once a week, but if I bought a week’s worth half of them would be off by the time I needed them.”
Moss Bay is littered with scraps of derelict land which Ann and the residents’ group would like to see tidied up. “Small changes like that would change this whole area and it would be good to have more places for young people to play sport. I don’t want people to think Moss Bay is just a dirty old steel and pit hole. I brought my kids up here. All my friends are here. You couldn’t ask for better people.”
And the area is more affordable than Greystoke. Two-bedroom houses in Moss Bay sell for about £85,000; three-bedroom for £95,000.
Most Moss Bay children will go to Southfield Technology College, which has the second-worst GCSE results in Cumbria.
The local Victoria infants school was graded as outstanding by inspectors last year. Youngsters are encouraged to eat healthily and take regular exercise.
“We have to look at fitness and diet and ask ‘What can we do to turn this around?’” says headteacher Pauline Robertson. “Ninety-nine per cent of children are taking up school meals where they have a salad bar, fresh bread and vegetables. Our hours of activity will be soon be increasing to five a week. It was two when I arrived here. But it can’t just happen at school. Parents are crucial.”
John Ashton, Cumbria Primary Care Trust’s director of public health, feels that the county’s widely differing life expectancy levels are due to a combination of factors.
“People in the ward with lowest life expectancy have probably been there all their lives, in poorer circumstances with more risk factors. Fitter people have probably moved away as circumstances have allowed, leaving behind a concentration of unfitter people.
“In Greystoke on the other hand there are a lot of retired middle-class professionals in good health who bring their longevity into the area. Most of these people haven’t faced many of the industrial hazards that others have had to and haven’t had to deal with unemployment. They are also more likely to be non-smokers.
“We now need to use this data as a forensic tool, to identify the areas with the highest number of premature deaths and go into these neighbourhoods in an organised way to address the issues.”
