It's an age thing.

HERE’S a cautionary tale. When we were at school, some 20 years ago, someone of my acquaintance was two years older than me. Since achieving professional renown, he now claims to be two years my junior. Any one of more than 200 people from his year could expose him as a forty-something and yet he persists.
So why do people lie about their age? I used to lie about mine. But I was 16 and trying to get served in a pub.

Nowadays, of course, I’d like to claim to be younger, but it’s fraught with problems. Lie too much and you run the risk of looking haggard for your “age”. And if you run into someone with whom you went to school, well the game’s quickly over.Age, of course, is one of the few things we can do nothing to change. No amount of skin creams, or Botox, or exercise will make me any younger. They might make me feel or look more youthful. But the fact is, I’m 39 and I’m only going to get older.
But is it any wonder we’re tempted to lie about our age? Age has become the ultimate label with which we identify and divide people; it’s hardly surprising we are so keen to conceal it.

Yet when we were children we scraped every last fraction into our age. We were four and a half, eight and three-quarters, and nearly ten. Adulthood changes this. A few months ago, a visitor to the house asked me how old I was. Before I knew it, I found myself blurting out the answer. At first I was annoyed that I’d answered so readily and then annoyed at the impertinence of the question. But why are we so insulted? If we think we look younger than we are, we are more than happy to encourage that kind of enquiry. Shouldn’t we just take the rough with the smooth?

When I was about to turn 30, I spent half the year imagining it was the end of something. The death of youth, I suppose. Of course, come my 30th birthday, I felt exactly the same as I did the day before, only without the illogical sense of panic.
Victor Hugo noted that 40 is the old age of youth while 50 is the youth of old age – I’ll have to let you know on that – but in the meantime I’ve decided to celebrate each birthday that, God-willing, passes by and not fear them. It's really just a matter of attitude.
We celebrate every birthday up to 21, but then we turn 30, push 40 and hit 50; and it sounds more and more gruelling as the years roll on. Once we reach 80 – there we go again, that's considered a stretch - we stop wishing happy birthdays and begin to congratulate each other. The marks of 90 or 100 are considered increasing achievements, as if living to 100 is something we can all achieve if only we try hard enough.

Now congratulations on wedding anniversaries I can understand, because marriage would seem to be something at which you have to work. But our age? I can’t help suspecting that a lot of this conditioning comes from greetings cards manufacturers; those cards with numbers on always seem to be the most expensive.

But lie as we might, we all have to put up with increasing maturity. But we don’t have to be governed by the numbers on our birthday cards. It’s your life that’s important, not your age.

So let’s just get on with living and stop worrying about birthdays. You never know, we might just start enjoying them again.



ENDS

I'm sure Wagon Wheels are getting smaller ...

SOMETHING’S been bothering me for a while now: whatever happened to white eggs? In any box of six, when I was a little girl, there would be one brown speckled egg and five of the purest white. But it’s not so much the eggs as the question that troubles me. Because I’m asking other questions too, like: “Why don’t they make fizzy Spangles any more?” and: “Are Wagon Wheels getting smaller?”
Worringly, they’re the kind of questions my parents’ generation ask. Does this mean I’m getting old? They say you know you’re getting old when the policemen start looking young, or you “remember when it was all fields around here”. And, while I haven’t yet reached that stage, I know I’m not a young girl any more.
I’m from that generation without a name: the offspring of the War Babies and the Baby Boomers, those who were born before Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon (albeit, in my case, by only four months). And now I’m wondering: “Are the Lunar Generation turning into their parents?”

Then along comes Life On Mars to make the 1970s cool again. And many elements of 1970s family entertainment are back in fashion. Basil Brush and Bruce Forsyth have made comebacks. And what was Britain’s Got Talent mean to be if not 2007’s Seaside Special? And best of all, Doctor Who, is back in its rightful place on Saturday teatime telly. It’s the same scary family entertainment it always was – only now I watch from in front, rather than behind, the settee.
They say you can tell someone’s age by their favourite Doctor. Well, mine’s David Tennant, although that particular warm fuzzy feeling has nothing to do with nostalgia. Seriously, “my” Doctor was Tom Baker and I think I wanted to be him. For my eighth birthday my best friend’s mum knitted me an enormously long multi-coloured scarf, just like the one he wore. I can remember wrapping it six or seven times around my neck and waiting for it to get cold. Games of Doctor Who were considered more suitable for boys: girls (and yes, I was guilty of participating in this particular playground gender stereotype) were more happy playing Charlie’s Angels because it involved being pretty and swishing our imaginary long hair about. I did, however, own a toy gun: bought for me by my ever-rebellious Nana so I could be Purdy in The New Avengers.
And there I am again: remembering the “good old days”. I try to remind myself that I‘m reasonably “switched on”. I know how to text (admittedly a triumph of determination over manual dexterity); I use online forums; I can operate Sky Plus; and do most of my shopping via the internet. But just as I congratulate myself for establishing my virtual persona in the online world of Second Life, I find myself having to explain the concepts of the test card and wooden escalators to the impossibly young stylist shampooing my hair.
Then again, while it’s shocking to realise that I was at school with girls who have sons older than Giles Barnes, I’m happy I can remember when all yoghurt was Ski; when potatoes came in three varieties (old, new and red); and when olive oil was just for treating ear wax.
If you too are in your mid to late 30s, I’ll bet you agree that it was nice when mums had Tupperware parties and made cheesecake; when the Eurovision Song Contest was about music not politics; and when Brownies wore dresses and bobble hats and three-quarter length socks.
In Derby on a Saturday night, there are youngsters so full of alcohol that they’re incapable even of vouching for their own safety, and I’m glad I’m too old to join in. I yearn for the days when experimenting was limited to adding lime cordial to your lager, or Malibu to your pineapple.
I no longer get irritated by cute children on TV; don’t worry about making an idiot of myself at the panto; and couldn’t care less that I can barely tell my Arctic Monkeys from my Snow Patrol. I’m not embarrassed to tear up at the first sight of a Nativity play; I realise life’s just not fair; and I already know exactly which elements of the 1980s fashion revival are going to cause the most embarrassment in 20 years’ time.
Still, when I listen to my parents reminiscing about Al Read and Ted Ray, my instinct is to push aside my own thoughts of Crackerjack and the Disney films of Jodie Foster. Then I realise that all I’m doing is remembering. It’s nostalgia I feel, not age. I’m not getting old, just older. And that’s just fine.