SECRET OF AGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 235, 4 October 1935, Page 5

SECRET OF AGE.

EARLY UPBRINGING.

NONAGENARIAN'S ADVICE.

MR. GEORGE GEE AT 94,

"If there is any secret for my great ago I would say that it is the fact that my parents took great care of me, as well as my brothers and sisters, when we were children," said Mr. George Gee, who is celebrating the 94th anniversary of his birthday to-day.

As a child of 10, Mi - . Geo came to Now Zealand from London in ISol with his parents, in tho Canterbury Association's sailing ship Sir George Follick. His father set up business as a confectioner in Christchurch, and Mr. Gee assisted him for some 30 years, when ho came to Auckland and joined with Mr. William Dalian in running the Coffee Palace, which was Auckland's leading restaurant in the eighties. It stood near the bottom of Queen Street when tho sea came up as far as Fort Street In 1863 Mr. Gee married Miss Wood, who had been a fellow passenger on the voyage out from England. There are three daughters and two sons and 12 grandchildren and six great-grand-children. Mr. Gee's memory is still perfectly clear and he is able to recall in vivid detail such historic happenings as the laying of the foundation stone of the Christchurch Cathedral by Bishop Harper in 1806, the turning of the first sod of the Lyttelton Tunnel by William Sefton Moorhouse, superintendent of Canterbury, and many events in New Zealand's history. "I have seen a ship wrecked on the spot where now stands the Lyttelton station," he said. "It was the Corsair, and after they got her off the rocks they towed her to a little bay nearby and beached her for repairs. That bay is to this day called Corsair Bay.

Never An Illness. Mr. Gee lias never suffered an illness throughout his long life and is still in perfect health although his eyesight is failing. "I have never been a teetotaller, but I have never abused drink," he said. Even now I have an occasional glass of stout or ale. I have always smoked a little and I still enjoy a cigarctte. I have not paid any special attention to my diet, although one of my favourite dishes as a younger man was roast beef. '"I am quite sure that the secret of longevity is to be found in one's early upbringing. When I was young children were looked after much better than they are to-day. They were well fed and properly nourished. I think that half tile illness nowadays is due to malnutrition when the people were children. | Constitutions arc not being well founded to resist diseases in later life. My three daughters and two sons have hardly ever had a day's illness in their lives because they were properly looked after when they were children." The Gee family have a wonderful record for longevity. Mr. Gee's grandfather lived to be over 90, his father was 70 when he died through an accident, botli his sons are still alive and are over 70 and many of his relations have been octogenarians or nonagenarians. Mr. Gee lives with his daughter, Miss Florence Gee, at Castle Bar, Khyber Pass, Auckland.