Well, there you go. I’m 68 years old.  Absolutely marvelous!  I feel so incredibly lucky.  I was born in the wealthy part of the world with a cracking medical system.  I was also born middle class and thoroughly enjoyed going at the age of 10 to be a boarder at a public school; a minor public school but, in retrospect, with more than a few years of experience in the education ‘business’, a rather quiet little gem!  I learned much there, academically and in many other areas like sport, riding, astronomy (Worked a bit with Patrick Moore who liked the nylon bearings on our dome (I shan’t speak ill of the dead!)), in the CCF and Air Section stuff about weaponry, a bit of flying, table tennis, hand ball (Loved that) music, oddly with a Chemistry master, piano, cornet – Lord, loads of things, and marvelous friendships, plus the ability to survive solo! 

Another element was that we all learned that we were privileged, were lucky, and those things came with responsibility, which for many of us meant a duty to serve.  Many went to Sandhurst, especially if my memory does not play me false, boys from South Africa and Rhodesia, as it used to be.  Some, of course, went into the family business, some the police, a few, like me, deciding to, and accepted for the priesthood, but thank God/ess I ended up in teaching.  Oddly, the very same thing had happened with my father.  Anyway, like many I went to Uni and have ended up with qualifications from three. I attended two of those universities full time, and Lordy I had fun, have loved my job teaching and was able to achieve headship at an early enough age to enjoy the deep privilege of 5 of them. 

Now here’s a thing that isn’t fair, I have noticed that all these things, these privileges have, let’s be honest, helped me with fighting my corner when troubles came along, and to fight the corner of my family.  It has also, as bit of a crock, meant my achieving top quality health care which has kept me alive to this age, some might say against the odds.  ‘Sharp elbowed middle class’ has helped to ensure I have always been looked after well by medical services and the fact that I am lucky enough to be fairly articulate has been the cream on the cake.  With new, and exciting (not!), medical possibilities constantly under consideration, I hope most sincerely this will continue!    

None of this means, however, that I’m special or even especially clever, it just means I’ve been incredibly lucky with the cards dealt to me, and believe it, I am most grateful.   I’m a fully paid-up member of DrugsRUs and they’ve kept me alive loads longer than I would have been without them.  They’ve also kept me alive when I would have died years ago had I been born and raised in the third world – how unfair it that?  With a bit more luck I’ll make the 68 years and 4 months which is the average age for men to die worldwide.  I have serious doubts, however, that I’ll manage the 79.2 years for men in the UK, 82.2 in France or even the 78.6 in the US.  One could, probably fairly, say that the way I have lived I don’t deserve to anyway!  Also, I’m not sure I want to.  We’ll see.  If I’m still enjoying life, bring it on!

One hopes, as a further age dividend, people will no longer say, “Oh, that’s not old” when they learn I am 68.  They mean well, I think, but they are, in fact, being incredibly patronising.  Managing to get old is partly due to genetics, party to location, partly due to luck but it is also partly due to being smart!  It’s actually something to be quietly proud of.  Being young in the western world is easy.  The young, however, are sadly not guaranteed any more time than that slice that they are experiencing now, plus that which they have lived.  A plague or war could start tomorrow. They – I did it also – in essence think there’s something clever about being young, whereas older people and old age generally are to be slightly pitied.  This is not the case!  Actually, oddly it’s the other way round.  There are Eeyore times occasionally when, indeed, I view younger people and consider the state of the world and feel pity for them.  I hope they have the time, good fortune and so forth to have the adventures and joys I have.  There sure as hell are no guarantees, however.  That’s why the Latin phrase, Carpe diem (Grasp the day) has always been so important to me, front and centre, and is written in a frame across from my bed so I see it every morning.

Actually, saying that, when I was young I did it also, the patronising the old thing, and I know that in some ways I still do.  If I see a bent, shuffling old person in their 80s, my first response is that I tend to feel sympathy for them, patronising them as I do so.  They may have creaky bodies and perhaps their cognition is slower but they could well be very happy and their slower cognition has 80 plus years of experience to draw from.  Also, they’ve had all those extra years that I haven’t, and if they’ve enjoyed them and feel they have been productive, then they’re winners in the lottery of life. 

I think it is probably generally true that as one gets older one feels that actually one is younger e.g I’m nearly 70 but feel I am in my 50s.  One does, of course, pay a price for the years, physically and some folk, tragically, mentally.  There’s also a higher chance of illnesses, wretched cancers of all sorts, heart attacks, strokes and so on.  Dull!  Increasingly medical science is improving though, and thus many of these ailments which would have been almost a certainty are now less likely to be a death sentence.  It’s true, though, that handstands, cartwheels, handball and rugby are things of the past, and I do get a little pissed off sometimes with ‘chronic pain’ and all the drugs but, so far, the trade-off in terms of years, joy in life, continued learning and experiences way, way outweigh the downside of one’s physical condition.

Getting older is natural, as is dying.  My personal belief has an eternal soul/consciousness, a most loving God / Mystery, the opportunity to meet up with family and friends, plus a variety of pets, when one dies, so something to look forward to, and then reincarnation.  These things are dead (little pun intended!) certs but I am concerned about how I’ll die.  Dementia terrifies me and I’ll do my best to ensure I have shuffled off before I have lost too many of my marbles, and a painful, lingering death has little appeal, having to be ‘brave’ and all that, but again, one has hopefully the option to leave ones’ creaky frame behind when staying in it is no longer worthwhile.

There are, as I referred to earlier, trade-offs and downsides in getting older but there are also positives, one of which, ironically, is time.  If one is lucky, retirement can be one reward for getting older, and if it is and one has sufficient provision to live ‘comfortably’, Lordy it’s a hell of a gift, being paid for doing nothing and having, day after day, freedom and choices.  I was fortunate in my career in that not only did I love it and have Monday as my favourite day but I also had school holidays of around 3 months a year in state schools and 4 months a year in private ones.  Of course I did do some work during the holidays, especially after I became a headmaster, but it was generally when I wanted to.  I was also fortunate in that some of my jobs paid me well enough to take time out, probably all in all around 6 years, generally in sections of between 6 months and 15. 

Retirement is an altogether different ballgame however.  If I’m lucky, years of time, each bloody day, to do with pretty much as I wish.  Slowing down and being creaky is a small price to pay for being paid for doing no ‘work’ ever again.  I still can’t quite get my head around it and it has been over 6 years now.  Sure, I have less money than I did when working (loads less!) and can therefore afford less ‘things’ but actually, when you get to my age you’ve pretty much got all the things you want  anyway.  I could have worked longer, made more money, bought more things.  Did I make a good choice when I chose less money and in return, total freedom to do pretty much anything I want for the rest of my life?  Too right I did, even, or especially, if I drop dead tomorrow! 

I think, also, with age I have changed and continue to do so.  I enjoy and wish for different things as I get older.  Obviously the older I get the more, ‘Been there, done that’ T shirts I have in my metaphorical closet.  In my case, certainly, it has given me the ‘space’ to spend more congenial and unstressed time with my wife, family and friends, our 10 cats, 3 dogs and 2 chickens plus loads for further study, learning, writing and for enjoying a property which totally suits me.  The fact that it essentially makes a quadrangle and is sort of inward looking fits very well with what real time allows me to do, looking within and exploring my consciousness.   The fact that it is placed far from any other house and is set within very beautiful countryside in a lovely little valley adds even more cream to a very acceptable cake.

I find it interesting to consider from time to time how the world has changed during one’s life.  Younger people’s lives will be subject to even greater change, and the development of quantum computers and AI are going to transform the world, I believe, very rapidly and beyond recognition, soon.  Though it is somewhat greedy, I hope to hang about long enough to at least be around for that, as I believe it will be hugely significant.  That said, in my life there has been a fair amount anyway!

I was born in 1951, so suddenly one looks back at what many consider to be history.  The King, George VI was on the throne and Clement Atlee was PM, with Sir Winston Churchill to take over from him after winning an election later in the year.   I lived in Ireland where my Papa had a car, a Morgan 3 wheeler and a motor bike, BSA Bantam 150 cc which had a top speed of 50 mph, but many people didn’t have any mechanical transport and rode horses, pony and trap and bicycles or used public transport.  The Land Rover was invented in the early 50s and the Mini at the end of them.  Back in 1952, less than 30% of distance travelled in Britain was by car, van or taxi, and even less in Ireland.  42% was by bus or coach, and 17% by train.  Generally these latter were steam trains.  (I used to love running to, and standing on, a bridge as a train was going under it and getting enveloped in steam/smoke.)  During my early childhood passenger aircraft were moving over from propeller to jet engines. 

We lived in a large, isolated house, generated our own electricity – many houses had none - had servants who were almost part of the family, and we all generally seemed to have a pretty idyllic life.  We had a wireless but no television.  The wireless used valves to function, as did TVs.  Most houses didn’t have a television.  There was one channel, BBC; ITV started broadcasting in 1955 and Telefís Éireann started broadcasting at the end of 1961.  Of course there were no home computers, computer games and so forth and the computers there were were large, filling a room and run with valves, wires etc.  Oddly enough, as a result we used to talk to each other at home!  Just imagine!  We also played games like chess, draughts, Monopoly (The Squire used to say he’d converted his hotels into bordellos and double the fees which somewhat enraged Mama who was much more focussed on winning.) cards, charades, hide and seek and so forth.  We did communal jigsaw puzzles and had singalongs and music sessions.  My sisters Carol and Lyndis used to harmonise beautifully when singing.  They didn’t that much when not!

On a less ‘homey’ front, in the 50s only the USA, the UK and the USSR had nuclear weapons, or more accurately, atomic weapons.  The US made its first much more powerful thermonuclear weapon in 1954.  France developed theirs in 1960, China later in the 60s and Pakistan and India in the 70s.  The UK spent 11.7 % of GDP in 1952 on military/defence and had a military force of over eight hundred thousand.  At present it’s around 2% and one hundred and fifty thousand personnel.  I grew up assuming the last sight I would see would be a mushroom cloud and I remember how the world held its breath during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.  It was during term time and I was ‘away’ at school.  The Masters were somewhat grim but reassuring and we were kept even busier than usual and had two extra movie nights in the Great Hall.  The following year, once again when I was at school President Kennedy was assassinated, and although not as frightening, it also rocked us boys and, of course,the world.

In the world of medicine, in 1954, the kidney was the first human organ to be transplanted successfully. Liver, heart and pancreas transplants were successfully performed by the late 1960s, while lung and intestinal organ transplant procedures were begun in the 1980s.  In the 50s the chickenpox virus was isolated, a polio vaccine was rolled out and in the 60s a measles vaccine was developed and deaths from measles plummeted.  I remember, too, before I went away to prep school, children in the village school who had had tuberculosis, and it was no longer a killer, since antibiotics were used after the development  during the war of streptomycin. There were more children I recall with the circular trail of ringworm on their faces.  Polio was still a scourge, especially for children.  Even in 1961 in the UK there were 707 acute cases and 79 children died.  I was lucky and was vaccinated as soon as one became available in 1950s. 

Lots of people had no washing machine or fridge, microwave etc.  In my house there had been people who did chores like the washing, cooking and so forth.  I remember getting my fingers stuck in the mangle when a maid was drying the washing.  She then panicked and turned the handle the wrong way, crushing my fingers further.  Eventually she got it right and I went howling to my mother who looked at my fingers – they were okay – and told me to learn the lesson and not be so foolish in future.  She was not unloving, just practical. 

On one occasion a local boy in the village we had moved to in Cumberland – I remember his name – used to attack me with a stick, a sort of shepherds crook.  He thought it great to bully the ‘posh’ kid from the big house that had electricity – once again we generated our own.  This went on for some time, so much so that most of the village knew about it.  My dear Mama believed that this was an issue I should be able to sort out myself. She took me out to the courtyard and came at me with a broom handle.  She taught me that if I moved in swiftly and grabbed the stick, it would only hit me once, if at all, and as I got it I should kick out hard.  She taught me that this technique could be used to end the attack and take possession of the stick.  I actually went out to find the boy who, on seeing me smiled and went at me with the stick.  The technique worked and I chased him up the village until I caught him going over a 5 bar gate.  I used the stick to whack his arse several times then threw it down by him and went home.  Oh what joy was mine!  Various folk congratulated me and I never had that problem again.

Anyway, I ramble, as usual, and can’t write an autobiography here.  Really, I’m just trying to paint a life that was in different times; life was different then, that’s what I’m saying.  Also, the war still hung over us.  There were still shortages and just about every adult had been touched by the war one way or another.  (As a related aside, did you know that though people go on about the ‘War Spirit’ when everybody pulled together, there were many more murders, with bodies generally being dumped in buildings which had been bombed out, in the hope that it would be assumed that it was the bombs which killed them?  No?  I thought not!) Even when I went away to school our comics had cartoon strips of soldiers fighting the Nazis or the Japanese and books like ‘Biggles’ in which he was an ace first WW1 fighter pilot fighting the brutal Hun were common and widely read.  It all meant that the war touched my generation also.

Although as little kids we didn’t know it, society was deeply racist and sexist.  In the wonderful ‘Famous Five’ books from Enid Blyton, books which turned on millions of children to reading, the roles were pretty much boys did certain things and were bold, where girls were not, though people forget that ‘George’ was a girl who acted like a boy.  In the ‘Swallows and Amazons’ delightful series, girls also bucked the sexist norm, so there were some folk who were eroding the old ‘rules’.  There can be no doubt, however, that being a woman was still in many ways seen as ‘inferior’ to being a man.  In well over 50 countries women didn’t even have a vote!

In Dr Doolittle stories which were in many ways wonderful, black people were still stereotyped in extraordinary ways, there were books also about ‘Little Black Sambo’  and jobs or rentals could often say, ‘Blacks or Irish need not apply’.  In my school there were no children of any other ethnicity.  There are, thank God/ess many now. 

So, since I was born 68 wonderful years ago, things have changed, and whatever people tell you, generally speaking for the better, though there is much still to do.  Good luck with that, youngsters!  Focus and believe in yourselves.  If something isn’t fair, try to make it so, whatever the person’s gender, faith, ethnicity, sexual orientation or difference from you and what you’re used to, and look in the same way at your fellow creatures on this planet.  Animals too know fear and pain, so why not resolve to be kind to all living things, except Michael Gove, of course, and cockroaches.  Oh, and don’t patronise old people, eh!