Centenarian George Stewart, the country’s oldest skier, said he was thrilled to achieve a sporting dream before he went into lockdown.
The retired forester, from Scone, Perthshire, celebrated his 100th birthday in December.
And he immediately set his sights on joining son Alan – a former Team GB Olympic skier – and his family on the slopes.
“I was very fortunate to get out skiing with Alan, his wife Ana, their daughter Cristina and the great-grandchildren in the French Pyrenees shortly before the pandemic struck,” said the one-time president of the Scottish Ski Club.
“I was very pleased with myself taking to the slopes. Not many people can say they skied at 100.
“When I celebrated my birthday, I was determined to get skiing again.
“I just wasn’t sure if it would be possible.
“But I certainly wasn’t going to pass up the invitation and we had a nice family get-together in the village of Vignec.
“There can’t have been many gatherings on the ski slopes with four generations of the same family.”
He said: “It was a very special moment for me, a miracle at my age, really.
But it did not all go smoothly for George, who taught himself to ski with homemade kit while serving as a captain with the Royal Artillery in Italy near the end of the Second World War.
“Unfortunately, on our third day, I fell over and landed very heavily on my hip,” said the former senior world tennis champion.
“It should have been a rest day. But I didn’t want to miss out.
“At first, I feared it might be broken but I got the best of attention at a local hospital and a scan confirmed that it wasn’t as serious as I thought.
“It has been slowly getting better but I am still getting around with the help of crutches.
“So the price of achieving my goal of skiing at 100 has been quite high I suppose,” he said.
George has always relished life in the great outdoors, and is finding it tough being confined to his home in Scone.
“It’s not very easy coping with the lockdown but I am in the same boat as everyone else,” he said.
“I live by myself and miss the company. But what can you do? Like everyone I just have to get on with it.”
However, George said he was fortunate to have carers who look in on him regularly.