‘When you get as old as us, you hang on to what you’ve got’: The secrets of a 90-year-old friendship

George Foukes and George Price first met in 1934, aged five. So just how have they remained as close as ever all these years on?

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“I can’t really explain it,” says George Foukes with a clarity and force that belies his 95 years. “He is my friend and comes to my mind often. I think, ‘I wonder how George is?’ It’s a constant thing. I can go weeks without seeing him and then I think, ‘I must ring up George and speak to him.’”
Somewhat confusingly, George’s best friend is the 96-year-old George Price, so my presence in the tropical microclimate of a care home in Wallasey, Merseyside, just makes things even worse. We’re all here to discuss – and celebrate – their 90-year friendship, which must be close to being the longest-running friendship in Britain. How and why they have kept this thing going for so long are secrets we could all benefit from knowing.
“When you get as old as we are, you hang on to what you’ve got,” says Price, sinking ever further back into the sofa. “You’ve got to hang on to your friendship even more than when you’re younger. If anything, you become closer. A couple of old so-and-so’s like us.”
He can no longer walk and his hearing and eyesight are deteriorating, something he explains with an unmistakable sharpness of mind. The other George lives nearby and is on one of his habitual visits. “I still appreciate my life,” says Price, an obvious favourite of the staff at the HC-One home a five-minute stroll from the river. He may be the frailer of the two, but he is louder than his friend, who is a relative baby, nine months his junior. “Without the people working here, where would I be? Dead probably. My last home rang up here to see how I was doing and they said, ‘Is he still alive? Good God, we didn’t think he’d make it to Christmas.’ And with a bit of luck, I’ll keep going. We’ve weathered the storm together.”
George and George first met in 1934, aged five, where they lived on the same street in Seacomb on the west bank of the River Mersey. “If you’ve known someone since you were five, you really get to know them, especially in those days before the War,” says Price, with the sharper, more recognisably Scouse accent of the two. “As a child, we didn’t have much to do. Maybe you had an old radio you listen to. There was a gang of five of us. We lived on Edgmond Street in Seacomb [near to where the Kingsway tunnel emerges from Liverpool], but it’s knocked down now.”
During conversations with two men in their 90s, the route to an answer can be long and circuitous and even once you get there you realise it’s often better to travel than to arrive. The fun is in the talking itself, not just the facts disclosed or the answers to the questions, but the working through, the engagement and the warmth that brings it out into the open.
“Before the War, the only thing you could do was play on the street and we both loved football so that’s what we did,” says Foukes, who supports Liverpool, while Price is a lifelong Everton fan, not that has ever been a problem from the moment their little gang was formed.
“Just before the War my parents moved us to Liscard [north of Seacomb] so I had to walk down to see my friends because I had no friends in Liscard,” says Foukes bitterly as if the wounds caused by this displacement were still raw nine decades later. “So every weekend I’d come back to see them and they were always there for me.” The two remained at the same school in New Brighton at the northern tip of the Wirral peninsula, with Price in the year above his friend. Like their old street, it is long gone.
They experienced the War in two distinct phases, the first when Liverpool was bombed – an obvious target for the Luftwaffe as a key port for the Atlantic supply network – followed by a quieter, apparently tranquil sequel. “I remember when the Blitz was on and we’d get the boat across the Mersey the night after a bombing raid and collect shrapnel and anything we could find,” says Price.
“After the air raids there was nothing happening around here, so we had a nice time playing football and going swimming,” says Foukes. “I lost my older brother as he was torpedoed while at sea when he was 16. That stands out as an awful memory and lives with me to this day. But whenever I needed a friend George was there.”
Each time he mentions Price, Foukes puts his hand on his knee or an arm around his shoulder. It’s affection and affirmation, but it also feels as if he is reassuring Price and perhaps himself that they still have each other.
After the War and national service, they got married to local girls, Price to Betty and Foukes to Gene, with whom he moved to Wales in 1951 to take up a new job as a warehouse manager for the Ministry of Food, just one stage of a somewhat peripatetic professional life. “Then I came back here and became a bus driver for nine years, then an inspector for two,” he says. “But I got fed up with that and started work at Vauxhall car plant in Elsmere Port, where this guy worked.”
“I worked in the body shop and when George arrived he worked in the paint shop above me,” says Price. “I stayed at Vauxhall a long time. Vauxhall was well paid in comparison with other jobs and we felt secure there.”
Happily, their wives became friends and they formed a new gang, socialising in Wallasey and on holidays around Europe. “Gene would say, ‘I met Betty today, so we’re all going out tonight,’” says Foukes. “We used to go on trips to Paris, Sorento, Rome, and the south of France all together. My wife always got on with his wife.”
Unlike his friend who spent most of his working life with Vauxhall, Foukes was also a driver for Royal Insurance, then had a stint at the Post Office before becoming a technical draughtsman, drawing architectural plans for the internal workings of new office buildings. “I ended up doing 11 offices in Liverpool, one in Glasgow, one in Chester and one in Peterborough,” he says. “Then I collapsed with a heart attack and they retired me.”
There are lacunae in their stories, memories that mingle and disappear then reappear. It’s not helped by the lack of photographic evidence, in part because Foukes has recently had to move out of his own home and into care and is unable to return to the property on doctor’s advice. So at times, there’s a dreamlike quality to their recollections, shattered by the sudden noise of life’s harsher realities.
“My wife died of cancer, just after I got her to retire. I was on my own for a short while.” Foukes looks at me sideways, making sure I notice the twinkle in his eye. “But I wasn’t on my own for long. I don’t think I should go any further.”
“He likes the ladies,” says Price. “I’ve been a widower for 13 years.”
As they aged they slipped back into each other’s lives as if they were children again, with the comfort of drinks at the Navy or Conservative Club replacing the playground and the streets. “When we retired I probably saw more of George than before,” says Price. “When he used to ride his scooter to see me he was always cold and I said, ‘Why don’t you get some warmer clothes?’ but that would have meant he couldn’t dress so smartly, which he wouldn’t do.”
Unlike Price, who’s in tracksuit bottoms and a cosy fleece, his old friend defies the years in a grey suit and tie. “You won’t see many 95-year-olds as well-dressed as him.” Foukes reaches over for a cuddle. It’s as if his friend is the embodiment of his own memory, his proof of life. As long as they are still here together each is a monument to the other’s existence. It is impossible not to be impressed with their dignity and spirit.
“I have a wonderful family,” says Foukes. “I had three boys but I lost one when he was 56 to drink. That was hard. Another one lives in Australia. My other lad has just retired, Andy, who brought me to see George.”
“I’ve got a son and daughter,” chips in Price. “I think bringing up children was harder then than it is now, but saying that it’s not much good if you’re young with the price of houses. That’s hard for young people now.”
The more they talk about each other and their lives, the more animated they become. Sophie, Price’s wellbeing coordinator, no longer needs to prompt him or repeat any questions at teacup-shaking volume from the back of the room. He’s in full flow.
“When you think back to how we’ve been friends for 90 years you can’t help thinking about how the world has changed. I wonder where the years have gone. I can’t get my head around it. Where the heck have they gone? Time really flies. When you can talk about things it keeps your friendship strong. You can fall out with people but never with George.”
“I’m just so glad to have a friend,” says Foukes. “The rest have all died. But he’s still here and I want to come and see him whenever I can.”
I tried not to think of the song Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel, but in the end, my brain could no longer resist hearing those final lines over and over again: “Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you.”
Foukes pauses as we prepare to say goodbye, as he has throughout, weighing up the impact and significance of what he wants to say. “I can still sing,” he says. “I always sing.”
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