Eila Ilola has followed Yle for nearly a century

Vaasa resident Eila Ilola, who turned 100 in August, has followed Finland’s public broadcaster Yle for almost its entire existence, Yle reports. She was born on August 31, 1926, just over a week before Yle began broadcasting on September 9.

Ilola’s first memories of radio date back to the early 1930s, when her family listened to broadcasts at a neighbour’s house because they could not afford a receiver of their own.

“We always went to the neighbour’s because we didn’t have a radio. Father was at war, and mother stayed at home with us children while also working,” Ilola recalls.

During the Winter War, radio was a vital source of information. The Työmiehen radio programme often carried greetings between soldiers at the front and people on the home front. Music programmes featured wartime songs, as well as lighter entertainment during the difficult period.

Ilola’s family eventually bought its own radio during the interim peace. It was given a place of honour in the home, and the family gathered around it to listen to Markus-setä, or Uncle Markus, a popular children’s programme hosted by Markus Rautio, one of radio’s best-known early performers.

During the Continuation War, Ilola was assigned to agricultural work, harvesting barley and rye.

When Ilola married in 1948, she and her husband again had no radio. Her husband bought one on instalment from a local shopkeeper for their small one-room home. At the time, radio broadcasts began at around 5.30pm and ended at 10pm.

Ilola listened regularly. She had always enjoyed reading and stories, and radio theatre became a natural extension of that interest. In the 1950s, the golden age of Finnish schlager music, her favourite singers included Olavi Virta and Annikki Tähti.

After the war, Ilola and her husband began dancing regularly. They continued going dancing even when her husband was 89.

Yle began experimental television broadcasts in 1957 and regular broadcasts in 1958. Ilola’s husband bought their first television in the early 1960s, around the time they were building their house. The set was also purchased on instalment, as Ilola had spent 10 years at home with the children and the family lived on one salary.

Television changed the rhythm of daily life. Ilola worked as a seamstress, keeping the radio on in the background as she worked. She could sew as many as eight wedding dresses in a week and would sometimes travel into the city in the morning to deliver dresses to women from the countryside who were waiting for their fiancés to return on leave.

Television programmes began at 6.30pm. Ilola’s favourites included the Suomisen perhe films and Me Tammelat, even though the episodes lasted only 15 minutes. Later, she also watched Tarzan films.

When Kolmostelevisio began operating in the 1980s, Yle faced new competition. Ilola barely noticed the change because her sewing work occupied her evenings.

Today, Ilola lives alone in her detached house in Vaasa. Home care workers visit in the mornings to make sure she has taken her two daily tablets, but she otherwise remains highly independent. She shops and cooks for herself, and spends her days knitting. In addition to making woollen items for her family, she donates 30 pairs of socks every year.