Maurice Kaye, Britain’s longest married man, dies aged 106

Maurice Kaye, believed to be Britain’s longest married man, has died aged 106.

He and his wife, Helen, 105, of Bournemouth, were married for 84 years and met four years previously when Maurice Kaye was a travelling salesman for his father’s clothing business.

The couple have two surviving children, Tina Son and Larry Kaye, seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Speaking to Jewish News following his passing on Monday, his daughter Tina said: “We’ve had the most amazing messages from people and they all talk about his sense of humour. He could just hold the whole room to attention.

“He touched so many people, who saw him as their adopted grandfather. We always appreciated what an incredible person he was.

“In many ways he was a renaissance man. He was a poet, a philosopher, an entrepreneur. He left school at 14 and was completely self taught, but one of the best read people I’ve ever known. He was so many things.

“If I had told him that, he would say that I was mad, because he never thought of himself as special. He was just incredible.”

After celebrating their anniversary last year, Maurice said: “So much has changed, but we still have each other, thank God.We had a great day with fabulous entertainment from our gorgeous great-grandchildren. Now on to the next milestone.”

At the time, Tina added her parents were an “inspiration to everyone who knows them and we count ourselves truly blessed.”

She described her mother as being “very stylish, having her hair done twice a week and her nails done every Friday,” and her father as still having “the same wicked sense of humor and zest for life.”

The couple said they could have been celebrating four additional years of married bliss were it not for the fact that Helen had not been allowed to marry sooner, as she had an older sister and tradition dictated that she should have the chance to wed first.

After they married in 1934, Maurice Kaye went on to manage his father’s factory and two shops in London before joining the army in 1939.

In 1944, the couple’s factory, shops and home were destroyed in the war, leading them to move to Bournemouth, where they raised their four children.

“I didn’t think it would last a week, but it’s amazing it’s lasted 80 years,” Maurice  told Jewish News jokingly several years ago about his marriage.

In that interview, he offered the secret to their happy marriage: always agreeing with his wife.