My maternal grandfather died when he was 98 - he was born in 1891. In his retirement he traced the family tree (well before the internet, so it was much harder work in those days), and when I inherited my mother's copy (all painstakingly handwritten and photo-copied for each branch of the rather large family) I found a copy of his memoires, also hand-written, which finished abruptly sometime in the second world war. I wonder when and why he stopped writing, but I'll sadly never know. He was a wonderful man, and my grandmother, ten years his junior, only out-lived him by eighteen months. We should feel privileged to have had such amazing relatives.