It’s time to grow up

WHEN I grow up I want to be Eileen Atkins. Or maybe Maggie Smith. But definitely not Jane Fonda.

Growing old disgracefully, or grandly or bossily, sounds fun. But trying desperately to cling to longgone youth? I think not. It’s time to grow up.

One in six of us will make it to 100.

Think of this next time you’re sitting at a table with five friends...

The trouble is, will we ever act our age?

This is the year that baby boomers start hitting 65. It’s safe to say that they will not be much like previous generations of 65-year-olds. Mostly fitter for a start and, despite the recession, mostly better off too.

But baby boomers have yet to realise they’re old. Or to admit in public at least. Sixty is the new sexy. Or the new 40. Or something. Fifty is barely adult and 40 still positively adolescent. Most of us still genuinely feel a lot younger than we are.

One of my Christmas presents from a son was a Welsh rugby top. I tried to imagine my mother wearing such a thing at my age. And failed.

It gets better. (Or worse.) A friend who married again at 52 and had burlesque lessons for her hen night, gave me a set of nipple tassels. I couldn’t even begin to think of my mother in those....

Perhaps we’re trying too hard not to grow up. Which might be a shame.

Old can be good.

New research this week showed that over-60s have more emotional intelligence than youngsters. They understand more, appreciate more.

That’s why Granny’s so good at solving family problems and is much more relaxed than parents about stroppy teenagers. She’s seen it all before.

Unless pensioners are particularly dim (and there are a fair few of those, I admit), they generally know more. Just from the sheer fact of being around for longer. Anyone with a half a brain is bound to pick up a few snippets about how the world works, along with what to do about wasp stings, burning chip pans and sorting out the economy.

Previous generations used to revere the old for their wisdom and experience.

But if the old are pretending that they’re not old any more, then they’ve given up on that privilege.

Old should be good, right? But instead of playing to their ageing strengths, baby boomers pride themselves on keeping up with the young – on sharing their fashions, their music, their attitudes. My 50-something neighbour went to Glastonbury with her daughter. Is it great that they share tastes and enjoy each other’s company? Or just a bit weird?

Jane Fonda has just released another fitness DVD. Well, great, really but also just a tiny bit desperate, wouldn’t you say? She can be as tanned and as toned as she likes, but that still doesn’t change the fact that she’s 73. And it all seems such an effort.

Much more fun to be like the Eileen Atkins character in Upstairs Downstairs. Lady Holland is wrinkled eccentric, bossy and totally in charge. She has all the answers to the problems because she’s old. She’s seen it all before.

She is the one people turn to in a crisis, still very much part of the current world, living life to the full Just not pretending that she hasn’t aged in the last 30 years.

Baby boomers have done things differently all their lives. Maybe, at last, we’ll grow old differently too. As there will be so many of us, we can start embracing age instead of denying it.

And if that means giving up on the tassel-twirling, well, that’s just a sacrifice that has to be made...

■ ALL over the country heaps of rubbish are piling up as there’s been no bin collection for a month.

Not in Richmondshire. After the chaos of the snow, despite the holidays, our bins were collected on their usual days. Amazing. But thank you.

OH dear. Romeo Beckham has been voted one of the best dressed men in the world, just ten places below his dad, David.

Romeo is eight years old. He’s dressed by his mum. His clothes are bought by his mum. What smart little clever clogs at GQ magazine thought it would be funny to turn him into a style icon? At eight?

If the Beckhams have any sense, next time we see young Romeo, he should be wearing something boring and scruffy from a chain store, like any normal eight year old.

Otherwise he’s doomed. If only to be endlessly teased by big brother Brooklyn.

SO here’s a new resolution for you – just to be more smiley, a little chattier and kinder to strangers.

It will make the world a better place – and you can still eat chocolate. Pretty good, eh?

❆So how are the New Year Resolutions going?

Ah, I thought so.

Don’t worry. Did you notice how in the snow everyone was friendlier, chattier, more helpful?

A trip to London in a blizzard was a revelation. Instead of the usual brisk, pushing, unsmiling attitude, people were actually looking at each other, holding doors open, laughing sympathetically, bothering to talk as we all plodded along on the ice like constipated penguins. Most un-London like.

Snow hadn’t just changed the landscape, it had magicked away everyone’s usual casual unthinking aggression. And it made a huge difference. Stress levels plummeted nearly as low as the temperatures.

A very bleak midwinter

SO it was Nigel, who got the chop in The Archers, sliding off the roof to his death with a magnificently blood curdling scream. While Horrible Helen seems to have had a personality transplant at the same time as a baby. Bizarre.

Whatever did they put in that gas and air?

Meanwhile, over in EastEnders, they had a cot death. Very festive. And everyone in Coronation Street seems to be in tears or trauma. All very bleak midwinter and a bit ghoulish when you’re sitting there stuffing down the Quality Street. So if we all abandon the soggy soaps and watch our box sets of Mad Men or The Trip instead, maybe the script writers will get the message.

Tantrums and toddlers

YES of course, when I first heard the news of Elton John, David Furnish and their new baby Zachary, born to a substitute mother on Christmas Day, my immediate reaction was one of extreme queasiness. As if Zachary were just another glittering must-have present all wrapped up under the tree, to be oohed and aahed over in between another diamond ring and spangly jacket.

Just another whim for a selfindulgent couple.

And yet.

Last year they tried, and failed to adopt an orphan. They have gone to great trouble to have this son who is clearly much wanted.

And how do you fancy his life chances against, say, the utterly natural babies born after a drunken coupling to foolish girls and feckless lads who are hardly aware of who their children are?

Being wanted by two parents is a pretty good start in life.

Maybe little Zachary will be okay after all.

And as for Elton, famous for his tantrums and tiaras, now he’s not the only baby in the house, maybe he’ll grow up a bit too.

FORGET your hi-tech gadgets.

The big hit in our house over Christmas was a vintage Subbuteo set, bought off eBay. Boys, their father and visitors played long and loud and late.

As their father and I were in bed one night we could hear the clank of lager bottles, the shouts of triumph, the bellows of disaster and accusations in the room beneath.

How nice, we thought, that our boys had some little friends around to play....