“I’m so excited that she might live to be 105,” says her mother Gemma, holding the baby close. “Imagine what she can achieve in all that time? She’s got an extra 20 years to travel the world and realise her dreams.”
That’s true, although the issue is whether she will be fit enough to enjoy it. Experts say girls like Megan can expect to have a second middle age, between 50 and 70, the earliest they are likely to be able to claim a pension.
If medical science lives up to all our hopes – and she has enough money to make her dreams come true – then the mature Megan will have a fine time. If not, and she is too sick to work and too poor to live well, then she and many others like her could be heading for decades of misery. The state is already struggling to cope with the needs of the elderly, but by the time Megan draws a pension, one in three people will be over 65.
So why is Megan predicted to live so long, and what can the rest of us learn from her?
Both men and women are living 30 years longer than they did a century ago, mainly because of better health care, diet and living conditions. During Megan’s lifetime, it may become the norm for women to live to 100.
“On the basis of current trends and improvements, it does seem that we will get to that figure, at least for women,” says Prof Peter Goldblatt of the Institute of Health Equality at University College London. “For male life expectancy, that is too far off to predict.”
The figures produced by Public Health England show some areas already leaping far ahead, while others are falling behind. Rather than a league table, it has published a highly detailed database, with tools enabling local authorities to see how well residents are living, how long they might last, and what is killing them. It divides England into small, manageable slices, one of which covers the 5,300 people living in Northburn, where life expectancy for girls at birth comes out so high. Close behind is Beggarwood in Basingstoke and Deane, where the figure is just over 104 years.
There are more than 50 areas where girls are thought likely to reach their nineties. But in Holme Wood, a council estate on the edge of Bradford, life expectancy at birth for girls is 72. That is the lowest in the country, with parts of Salford, Stockport and St Helens doing only slightly better.
The boys of Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, are worst off, being expected to live to just 66. In parts of Nottingham, Blackpool and Leicester they are given another year. Meanwhile, life expectancy for boys in Broadfield, a neighbourhood of Crawley in West Sussex, is the second highest in the country at 96; but those in Knightsbridge, in central London, can expect to reach nearly 98.
“Profound inequalities in life expectancy persist across the country, between men and women and between the most and least deprived areas,” says Prof John Newton of Public Health England. “The evidence is clear: a person’s likelihood of dying early varies between areas due to differences in risk factors such as being overweight, lack of exercise, excessive alcohol consumption and smoking,” says Prof Newton. “But these factors are also closely linked to economic deprivation and other aspects of the way we live that may be beyond an individual’s control.”
Certainly Megan had no choice over where she was born, although she apparently didn’t want it to be at home. “We had a birthing pool set up in the dining room but she had other ideas,” says Gemma Alexander. Megan arrived on July 22, weighing 8lb 5oz.
Nobody knew how lucky she was, in terms of a long life. “I couldn’t quite believe it when I heard,” says Mrs Alexander. “I mean, Northburn is a nice place to live and bring up kids, with lots of green space, but what has it got that other places haven’t got?”
The answer is nothing, at first sight. The estate is a tidy collection of roads and culs-de-sac on the edge of Cramlington, with a gentle burn – or river – running through it. The houses are detached or semi-detached, with a sprinkle of mock-Tudor here, a drop of Georgian there. The cars are respectable, middle-range vehicles of the kind a company director might drive while he dreams of a Bugatti Veyron.
Chris Alexander, Megan’s father, used to be a soldier but now helps build offshore wind farms. Mrs Alexander is an accounting technician. She has a son, Matthew, whose football boots are outside the front door. “There are a lot of pitches around here,” she says. “It feels like a safe place to play.”
Cramlington is on the up, with a new cinema and hospital. There is work to be had in the new shopping centre, on the giant industrial estate, or 10 minutes’ drive away in Newcastle.
But none of this really explains why Megan and her fellow baby girls should hope to reach 105. For that, you have to dig down deep into the Public Health England research. The life-expectancy figures are partly based on deaths over a five-year period to 2010. Northburn is a new estate with a young, relatively prosperous population, and only 29 women died there during the study. They lived mostly long lives, hence the high prediction. So it is partly a statistical blip.
However, there is much more to the story than that.
“We have good affordable housing, access to excellent health care and child care,” says Julia Maugham, who runs baby classes in the area. “The schools are high-quality and attendance is good. Crime is low. There is still a strong sense of community.”
Why should girls in particular do well? “Women are much more likely to take advantage of health screening and more willing to engage with programmes to improve well-being than men.”
The statistics give other clues to longevity. Overcrowding is unheard of and long-term unemployment all but non-existent. Deprivation is low and only 34 children are classified as living in poverty. Obesity levels are better than average. The people of Northburn suffer less than usual from cancer, heart disease, respiratory problems and strokes.
Now contrast that with Holme Wood in Bradford, where life expectancy for girls is 72. It has a population of nearly 8,000, including many more pensioners. Overcrowding is an issue and 15 per cent of people here are classified as long-term unemployed. Levels of deprivation are high and 1,200 children live in poverty. Obesity is a problem in adults. The levels of all cancers, heart disease, respiratory problems and strokes are all above average, with lung cancer particularly high. Boys here are only expected to live to 68.
Public Health England warns that these figures have to be “treated with care” because of the experimental nature of the database, but confirms that they do indicate the vast differences that exist across the nation.
On average, a well-off person will live seven years longer than a poor one, says Prof Goldblatt. Politicians of all kinds acknowledge what needs to be done, he says.
“The first thing is to reduce long-term unemployment, particularly among young people,” he says.
“In the longer term, it is about giving every child a good start in life. And we need to take action on physical conditions in deprived areas, such as making people feel safer and tackling isolation with better transport.”
Has he noticed we’ve just had a recession? “It’s about making better use of the money we are spending.”
Britain is falling behind other countries on some indicators such as child mortality, he says. But then a look at the league table compiled by the CIA shows exactly what you need to live longer: cash, tax-free.
Monaco tops the chart with a combined life expectancy for men and women of 89. Macau, San Marino and Andorra are all among the countries that follow, with Guernsey, Switzerland and Hong Kong. Their fellow tax havens of Liechtenstein, Jersey, Bermuda and the Isle of Man all rank above the United Kingdom.
Down at the bottom are Guinea-Bissau, South Africa and Chad, each with a life expectancy of just 49. The UN expects that to go up as medical advances stop the spread of HIV/Aids and other diseases, with the world average reaching 81 by the time Megan reaches her centenary.
The planet will be more crowded then, with a population of 9 billion or more. Africa will have swollen to 2.5 billion and Asia to 5 billion, eclipsing the 500 million in Europe – although the predictions do not allow for war, water shortages, famine or natural disasters. If large parts of Africa become too hot, too dry or too barren for life, for example, there could be an understandable exodus to more hospitable lands.
The difficulty of predicting what might happen is demonstrated by the life of Violet Muers, currently appearing in a BBC documentary on the Great War. She recalls the flash from German gunships as they fired on her house in Hartlepool in 1914. Mrs Muers also saw a second world war, the Holocaust, the rise and fall of the Soviet empire, the atom bomb and a man on the Moon. Who would have predicted those?
She was born into a world without television and died, aged 106, in November, when all of human knowledge was available at the swish of a finger on an iPad. So who knows what Megan will see if she lives as long? There are some things we can predict, though, as she plays under the Tree of Life on her bedroom wall.
“I would love to see her go to university,” says her father. The likelihood is that by then it will cost £20,000 a year. Her mother laughs, apprehensively. “That’s mad, isn’t it?”
If Megan has a child of her own, it will probably be in her thirties, given that the age of women giving birth for the first time is rising. If she gets married it will probably be after that, as for nearly half of brides these days. “Daddy’s got longer to save, then,” says Gemma Alexander, before realising that as mother of the bride she may be in her seventies. “Oh my good God, that’s scary.” The retirement age is certain to rise, so Megan will probably not be able to pick up a pension before she’s 70.
That long second middle age will stretch out before her. Mrs Alexander sees signs of it already. “My Auntie is 60 but she’s like 40. She is not long retired from the police force, but she’s got an ultra-modern haircut and wears really nice clothes.”
There is a chance that medical science will enable Megan’s generation to stay fit and healthy for far longer, possibly even curing diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. If it does, could we even live beyond the age of the oldest woman in history, Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 with a proven age of 122?
Prof Goldblatt is cautious. “I think there may come a point when the rate of increase tails off because it is getting up to such high values,” he says. “At the moment, there is a fairly clear limit to longevity.”
If science does not come up with miracle cures, we have a problem. Who will pay for the care of an elderly nation?
“The challenge is whether we can reduce the number of years that people spend with an illness or disability,” says Prof Goldblatt. “If it actually increases, that will be a huge pressure on health and social services, however they are organised.”
So the prospect of Megan living to 105 is both a cause for celebration and a warning of the great challenges to come, some of which scare Chris Alexander. “As her father, I want to protect her.”
But as we both strain to imagine this gurgling baby as a very old lady, there is one thing he wishes for more than any other. “I just hope she’s happy.”
How baby Megan’s life might look
* Based on the way prices have risen over the last century, a pint of milk will cost her £50
* If she has a child of her own, it will probably not be until her thirties
* If she gets married, it will probably be after that
* The good news is that if she does marry, she is less likely to divorce
Megan: the baby who may possibly dwell to 105
