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Doris Griffiths: Living Is Easy If You’re Willing to Do It

For Doris, I made my grandmother (Nonna)’s very special crostata recipe. It’s basically a jam tart, but it’s a dish my Nonna always used to have in her kitchen. It was like magic: the minute the last slice would go, another would appear. It was something she always had there on the side for anybody, child or adult: a sweet treat with a cup of tea. Her house was never without a sweet tart or a cake, always home-baked, never store bought, always with homemade jams from well-worn family recipes that I’ll be handing down to my children as they were handed down to me.

As I brought my crostata to Doris Griffiths’ 105th birthday party, it was no surprise to find that, just like my Nonna, Doris has always enjoyed a regular slice of something sweet. Watching her at the party, sprightly and engaged in her surroundings, I wondered if longevity is simply predestined, written in our genes—so I was surprised to learn that Doris was the only one of five children to survive miscarriage and infant death. Educated at Gnoll School in Neath, she entered domestic service at the age of 14 and spent the next 51 years working as a cleaner, a receptionist, and in the kitchens back at her old school. She married Ivor at age 21 and had the first of her four children at 25. Outside of work and family, her life revolved around the chapel where she sang and became a Sunday-school teacher. After her husband passed away in 1976, Doris continued to live in their home for the next 39 years, right up until last year. In every particular, in her life and her upbringing, her story is echoed in any home in any town in the Welsh valleys. So what made Doris the rare exception who made it to this incredible age? I asked her.

“I don’t know if there’s any secret,” she told me. “I live quite cheap and easy. I have what I want to eat, and my favorite breakfast is a nice bit of toast. Sometimes I have a bit of cheese with it, or an egg. Anything goes with me! I eat quite a bit, always at mealtimes. I don’t eat between meals at all; that would be very rare for me.”

I asked her to elaborate. “And your support networks, your family, your friends. Having people that can help you and you can depend on. Do you think that’s an important thing?”