– Anon, via emailOK, let’s pick through this one together. Context is all. Plenty of people choose to drink quite heavily in old age – surely they have earned the right to do so without being judged for it.Probably the most famous example is Churchill.
Boy, there was a PM who could put it away. Estimates vary but it’s generally agreed he had a ‘mouthwash’ of whisky when he woke up each morning, and several whisky-and-sodas for elevenses.
He downed a pint of Champagne at lunch, sank a few more Scotches at teatime, and another pint of champers during dinner. A few more whiskies before bed, and a brandy before he put the light out.
Your neighbour’s consumption doesn’t even come close.She’s more in the same league as writer Hunter Davies, now 86 and sharp as a tack, who three years ago cheerfully revealed he gets through a bottle of wine a day: ‘Sometimes more, if I’ve been out – though I do try to restrict myself to a litre a day.’Or how about Diana, Lady Farnham, the long-serving Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen, who passed away last Christmas aged 90?
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