THE challenging card game of bridge has a special place in centenarian Ben Finkelstein’s life.
“It’s my only major interest and I look forward to it every Monday and Thursday,” he said from his Patterson Lakes retirement village last week.
Born on a West Australian wheat farm 240 kilometres east of Perth on 16 June 1917, Mr Finkelstein celebrated his centenary at a lunch with friends and family, including his son Howard, down from Queensland for the occasion, and daughters Cheryl and Joanne. His wife Ethel died of cancer in 1984.
Looking back over the century he recalls coming to Melbourne from Perth in 1940 as a 23-year-old and joining the Melbourne Harbour Trust. He completed an engineering course and, after a few months – and with the Second World War occupying everyone’s thoughts – he decided to enlist.
“I went to Melbourne Town Hall to sign up and was asked my profession,” he said. “When I told them I was an engineer they said I would be required to stay in Melbourne but that I could pick where I was deployed. It was a choice between the Williamstown shipbuilding yard and the ordnance factory at Maribyrnong.
“The ordnance factory manager was a West Australian so off I went to join him and that’s where I spent the war.”
After the war, with thousands of returning soldiers looking for work, jobs were scarce. Luckily, Mr Finkelstein’s old boss had opened an engineering business in Surrey Hills. It had a contract with the Postmaster-General’s Department (PMG, forerunner of Telstra) servicing public phones, and so he began working there and stayed for 35 years.
A short retirement followed in the late 1970s before Mr Finkelstein again joined friends at a plastics injection moulding business in Richmond for 10 years. When it was sold he retired for good.
After a short stint living with Cheryl in Perth, he returned to Aspendale – and started playing bridge at Patterson Lakes Community Centre and at Frankston Bridge Club, which also put on a special birthday afternoon tea for his centenary.
Now bridge is a major interest and challenge. “It’s a great game and you have fun mixing with a nice crowd,” he said.
With age comes a balanced perspective on international affairs: “I don’t think we will end up in a tragic situation but it is always better to collaborate with other countries than to argue.
“A lot will depend on how [US President Donald] Trump turns out. I’m not overly concerned as there are a lot of intelligent people behind him with the president being more of a mouthpiece.”
Yes, the world has changed a lot, he mused. “There are lots of disturbing influences but, overall, it is still a marvellous place.”
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 28 June 2017
