RECENTLY a colleague (a much younger colleague, it must be said) asked me if I knew what date the coronation had taken place. Now, I am well used to the whippersnappers in the office coming to drink at the fountain of my wisdom, if not youth. I did once have someone ask me if JFK Jnr was any relation to JFK. But this time there was something in their look that pulled me up short.
"Are you asking," I enquired, "because you think I know, or because you think I was there?" A few moments of discomfort followed – on her part as well as mine – before she nervously said: "Er, both?"
And then I did what no woman should ever do, n
o matter what the provocation. I asked The Big Question. "How old, exactly, do you think I am?" I don't know which of us was the more embarrassed as the words hung in the air between us. Actually, I do. It was me. She shook her head and shot me a look of pity before becoming deeply engrossed in the indoor hockey match reports.
When did I become this old crone? Don't get me wrong – I know that I'm old. Well old-er. It's not as if I'm clinging on to my youth by my fingernails. I'm well aware that I'm mutton dressed as mutton. I quite cheerfully admit to having no idea who is currently at the top of the hit parade and have found myself saying things like: "What on earth are you wearing?", "Do you think I could get a seat?" and "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over this noise."
But the world keeps telling me that 40 is the new 30 (let's not even think about 50 being the new 40). We're all so comfortable with age nowadays: just look at the marvellous way that our elderly are depicted in the media. Over the last few weeks we've all been encouraged to marvel at their amazing prowess. Greg Norman made it all the way around Royal Birkdale without needing assistance. And he's 53! My, what an achievement! Steve Davis managed to make it into the quarter-finals of the recent Grand Prix in Glasgow. And he's 50! Bless. And as for Cherie Lunghi in Strictly! Where to begin?
Everyone from judges to her fellow dancers have expressed their grave doubts that someone of her, ahem, more mature years will be able to stand the pace. For heaven's sake. She's 56. She's planning to do a few ballroom dances. The undoubted province, I would have thought, of the elderly.
Anyone would think that these poor enfeebled oldies needed their nurse, a constant supply of incontinence pants and an ear trumpet before they could contemplate leaving the house of a morning.
When did the world change so that anyone over the age of 25 was ancient? It was only a couple of years ago that I was being told I was too young for things. A friend who is on the other side of 40 (that's the other side from me) was challenged for ID when buying his Government-approved alcohol allowance last week. I can just about swallow the fact that he looks good for his age, but unless the checkout girl was wearing sunglasses and there was a sudden power cut in Tesco's there is no way on God's Green Earth that he can be mistaken for some binge-drinking yoof.
Obviously there is a brief window when we are the 'right' age. I think that was when I might have been having a wee lie down.
The full article contains 621 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
