John Pearson reflects on Age.
Perhaps ‘old’ is, in absolute terms – years – 70 or 80? But how old are you, relatively? For you, does 70 feel like the new 60, 80 like the new 70, and so on? Or are you feeling ‘old age’, or worse? Certainly we (and here I group myself with the almost-70’s) are mostly finer mint, and I like to think, more ‘spruce’ than our counterparts of 40 years ago.
When I started work in 1976, those then retiring from my line of business looked the part. Many were not long gone from the workplace before they started to dress old, act old and one or two fell off their perches. Sebastian Faulks in one of his books paints a vivid picture of how older people could nearly always be characterised by a certain dowdy, down-at-heel, dull ‘sense’. Back then one might expect to start packing one’s bags for that final journey at around 72 (women 75, men 79). Nowadays the figure is 81 (women 83, men 79).
In a previous piece on these pages, ‘Growing Old Gracefully’ (Sofia 117) I reflected on the film Mr Holmes, describing the later years of the fictional detective, now supposedly aged to be 93 years of age. What came through was not the still-sharp, though fading, brain of the eponymous hero, but also the symbiotic relationship between Holmes and an eleven or twelve year old boy, son of the old man’s housekeeper. Did Holmes take the boy on somehow? Throughout the film we have a tender evocation of the bridge which can form across those of different ages, past and present. The greatest gifts which the old can give the young are their first-hand experiences of events in what the latter may see just as ‘history’.
We value age in many ways: against the ‘joys of youth’ we set ‘wit and experience.’ We celebrate matured cheeses, vintage wine (and cars). There are anomalies: some young women seek to seem older than they really are, whilst some older women frantically chase youth. Age is revered in male actors, (who ‘ripen’), not so much so in female ones, or so I hear.
Many people whom I know see themselves as being eternally caught at a golden time in their lives; deep inside I shall forever be 24 or 25 – despite the fact that I am gradually approaching the last of Shakespeare’s seven ages myself, ‘sans teeth [some dentures], sans eyes [aided by spectacles], sans taste, sans everything’ (and with hearing aids). So, in my daydreams, Walter Mitty-like, I can bravely pilot a Lancaster through the nightly flak to a vital target, courageously captain a rugby team to victory or courageously cross the Western Desert (not that I ever actually did any of these!). How about you?
At least in most modern settings the bar has been raised, so that one need no longer retire gracefully at 65. Encouraged by the recognition of longer active lives, employees are now able, some encouraged even, to stay on far beyond. For some, sadly, it may be an economic necessity, in order for them to continue to make ends meet.
To conclude; as with statistics, you can play interesting tricks with age, again both the absolute and the relative. We may marvel at historic artefacts and the like, some being tens of thousands of years old. David Attenborough has spoken of the oldest living things, plants, some living for up to 5000 years (the Bristlecone Pine in California). I first met my grandson when he was about six hours old. At the time I was just over 100,000 times older than he was. A year later I was suddenly only 67 times as old. When he is ten I shall be less than 8 times as old – and so it goes on. The oldest woman in the world is currently 119 years old whilst an adult female Mayfly lives for only five minutes, the first twelve million times older than the second. Hope that makes you feel younger!