One hundred years young

Ava Doherty talks to a Finchley resident about a lifetime of change

An old image of a young woman — Mrs Thompson

There is an idea of a centenarian as someone who becomes a curiosity: seated in a corner with a lap blanket, politely admired from a safe distance. Mrs Enid Geneve Thompson is not like that.

Born in Jamaica on 7th June 1926, Mrs Thompson celebrated her 100th birthday last month.

She crossed the Atlantic around sixty years ago and settled in Finchley, which she says has been an excellent place to live: good neighbours, easy to get about, the measured verdict of someone who has had six decades to form an opinion. In more recent years she has lived with her daughter and continues to enjoy the local amenities and walks through Victoria Park.

She tells Barnet Post: “Family is what has made life meaningful. My children and family around me give me the confidence to go on living.”

Mrs Thompson’s six children all went to university after she herself was told, as a girl, that education was not for the likes of her. She wanted to be a nurse. Her father said no.

Following a career as a bespoke dressmaker, Mrs Thompson was widowed around forty years ago. Alongside her work and family responsibilities, she also volunteered in local hospitals, giving her time generously to others.

She had lived through multiple eras of profound social change. She vividly remembers sympathising with the Bristol Bus Boycott movement in 1963, which followed a bus company’s refusal to employ Black or Asian staff.

Mrs Thompson was and remains a devoted grandmother. When her grandchildren were growing up, she often looked after them in the evenings so their parents could work.

Her faith has been a constant throughout, and she now follows church services by telephone with unwavering regularity.

In between, there is television, specifically quiz programmes: Lingo and The Chase. She watches with a focus that suggests the contestants would be wise not to take it lightly.

In recent months, Mrs Thompson lost her final remaining sibling, her brother, aged 96. She has outlived her husband and many of her friends.

Now the last of her generation, her family say she meets this with the same composure she has brought to every other stage of her century. Her courage is undimmed. Her zeal for life intact.

She says: “The biggest change has been the speed of things. When I was a girl, you got your information by post. Now everything is instant.”

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