Some people have a peculiar approach to death. They accept that one day they will die and get on with their lives. Me, I’m still struggling with that whole “plunging headlong into the insensible, eternal void” business.

I intend to be a burden to my children for as long as I possibly can, my liver-spotted claws clinging insistently to the nurse’s wrist as she tends my life-support machine.

To find out how I might achieve this, I went to Okinawa, off the southern tip of Japan. For some decades now, the people of Okinawa have been living longer than any other on earth, their women especially so, with an average life expectancy of 86.88 years (in the UK, it’s 81.5 years). And they aren’t just kept alive courtesy of machines that go ping.

Many of Okinawa’s 800-plus centenarians — more per capita than anywhere else in the world — live alone, the majority are in good health and some even work. So, while my family had been looking forward to frolicking on subtropical beaches, I had in mind nothing less than to divine the secret of immortality.

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That needn’t exclude frolicking on a subtropical beach, of course, so we headed to the western coast of the main island, Okinawa Honto, where the best resorts are to be found. We checked into the Kise Beach Palace, a characteristically Okinawan blend of Japanese modernity and subtropical, Hawaiian-ish decor giving onto a fine white-sand beach.

Thanks to its position as a bridge between China and Japan, and to its sparsely inhabited coral-ringed islands, Okinawa has a unique culture. Its people are far more laid-back and peaceable than the mainland Japanese, and once I’d slumped in a rattan chair beneath palm trees, so was I.

The next day, I quizzed Dr Craig Willcox, a Canadian gerontologist who has spent more than a decade studying the secrets of Okinawan longevity. Just how healthy are they, I wondered? “They have lower cholesterol and suffer less from heart disease, arteriosclerosis and many cancers,” he said.

So what do they eat? “Plenty of fish, whole grains, vegetables and soy products,” Willcox continued. “They eat more kombu [a type of seaweed], kelp and tofu than anyone else in the world, and lots of squid and octopus.”

Other health-promoting factors include strong spiritual beliefs, tight social networks, a relaxed attitude to time, moderate exercise and not being bundled off to nursing homes.

I wanted to meet a centenarian of my own. Okinawans believe touching one brings good luck, which conjures images of harried oldsters unable to pop out to the shops without being pawed at every turn, but just a look would do for me.

The best chance would be in the so-called longevity village of Ogimi. It’s in the less-developed northern half of the island, where there is little but coast and forest punctuated by low-rise, often traditional, wooden housing. About a third of its population of 3,000 or so is over 65, and more than 100 of those are centenarians.

In the village’s “longevity cafe”, we lunched healthily beneath dragon-fruit vines as bird-sized butterflies flitted in and out of the open-fronted dining room. I asked the owner, Emiko, if she could introduce us to a centenarian, and soon we were making our way down the ramshackle high street, past lush gardens, each tended by an elderly, white-hatted local. It was like the film Cocoon made flesh.

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