100 not out

My Auntie Dorothy is celebrating her 100th birthday this week, although I’m not sure if celebrate is the right word.

My mother’s older sister, born in April 1925, has a wry sense of humour and a self-deprecating no-nonsense attitude, so I can’t imagine she would have wanted any fuss.

Nevertheless I don’t recall anyone else in our family reaching this milestone so I think it should be celebrated, even if it’s not as rare as it used to be.

Do you remember when reaching 100 merited a telegram from the Queen and a story in the papers?

You can still get a message (from the King) on your 100th birthday but you have to be in receipt of a state pension or other benefit and live in the UK, none of which applies to my aunt.

You see, Dorothy has lived in Zurich for 75 of her 100 years. She moved there in 1950 after marrying Reini, who was Swiss German.

They met in Switzerland in 1948. (I ought to know why she was there but I can’t remember.) Reini then visited her in London and proposed.

It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like moving to the continent so soon after the war, but the standard of living in Switzerland would have been significantly higher than the UK where rationing didn’t end until 1954.

Nor had neutral Switzerland suffered the extensive damage that blighted many of our towns and cities long after the war was over.

In those days few people in Switzerland would have spoken English so Dorothy had to learn the language (Swiss German) very quickly.

(I’m told that the Swiss can understand German but the Germans have more difficulty understanding Swiss German.)

As long as I’ve known her my aunt speaks English with a hint of a Swiss German accent, and by her own admission she uses words that were familiar in the Forties and Fifties but are no longer common parlance.

"Cripes", for example, although she's not alone in that. I've heard Boris Johnson use it too.

Remarkably, until he died 20 years ago, Reini and Dorothy lived their entire married life in the same rented apartment in Zurich (renting being at least as common as home ownership in Switzerland).

They had two children, my cousins Rolf and Tom, who are seven or eight years older than me. After doing national service (which is still compulsory in Switzerland) one became a doctor, the other a dentist.

We would see them occasionally when they visited my grandparents in England, but after my grandparents died they came over less frequently, although I remember Tom visiting my parents in Derbyshire several times.

After Reini died Dorothy continued to live in the same apartment but two years ago tenants were given notice that the building was to be demolished.

Although it was a wrench to leave, it was quite good timing because Dorothy was 98 by then and she was struggling to climb the stairs. (There was no lift.)

She therefore moved to a retirement complex where a small suite of rooms gives her some independence in a safe, communal, environment.

To put Dorothy’s mobility issues in perspective, she loved travelling and even in her Nineties she visited China and other countries where she would book a personal guide to show her around.

For many years she was a member of a private women’s club near Piccadilly where she would stay whenever she was in London.

We had dinner there once, but I usually saw her only when she was visiting my parents or, after my father died, my mother.

For many years I was the proud holder of a Swiss bank account into which Dorothy paid a small sum on my birthday until I was 18.

The money sat there for years until the bank said it was going to close the account due to inactivity, so I took the money out and used it to help pay for a trip to Switzerland.

That was one of several visits to Zurich. The first time was in the late Eighties when I was invited to address a conference in Basel.

I flew to Zurich, spent two days with Dorothy and Reini, before catching a train to Basel.

It was June/July and hot. Reini enjoyed watching Wimbledon (his favourite player at that time was Boris Becker) and I recall watching the tennis on television with him.

What I remember most though was their lovely balcony that was cocooned by flowers and shrubbery, allowing us to eat outside, and the ear-shattering noise of the local church bells at seven o’clock in the morning.

It was a remarkable sound that seemed to go forever (well, several minutes) and I’d never heard anything like it, but Dorothy and Reini were oblivious to the cacophony.

I also remember them taking me by car to a village outside Zurich where I heard the unmistakeable sound of cow bells echoing across the valley. A real Sound of Music moment.

My next visit to Zurich was with my own family in 2011. Reini had died a few years before so I took them to see Dorothy, my cousins, and their children.

We drove to Zurich via France after crossing the Channel on an overnight ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo. It took us two days with an overnight stop in Lausanne.

As well as visiting family, we jumped on trams, explored the old town, and took a boat across Lake Zurich.

We also ascended Mount Rigi, north of Zurich, via a mountain railway which was quite an experience.

The view at the summit, looking down on other mountains, was extraordinary.

My third and last visit, in 2014, was also business related and was prompted by a request to meet a smokers’ rights campaigner from Russia, and a cigar merchant who flew in from Austria.

We met in a cigar shop before crossing the road to continue our meeting in an impressive but discreet smokers’ lounge above a restaurant. All very John Le Carre!

(See ‘My meeting with mysterious Mr A’.)

There was very little time for extracurricular activities, but I remember having dinner with my aunt and cousins, and a few other members of the family.

What I remember most about that trip however was watching Germany play Brazil in the semi-final of the World Cup.

I was in a windowless room in a nondescript hotel but there was a large screen and the result (Germany 7-1 Brazil) was one of the most remarkable in World Cup history.

Anyway, in a few weeks I’m taking my mother to Zurich to see her sister for what, realistically, will be the last time.

They speak every week on the phone but my mother is 94 so their combined ages are 194.

We’ll also see Rolf and Tom so I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, a very happy birthday to Auntie Dorothy.

One hundred not out!