A year ago, I became the editor of the Oldie Magazine after the tragic death of Alexander Chancellor at the age of 77.
Alexander had edited the Oldie for three years. Before him, that other titan of British journalism, Richard Ingrams, one of the founders of Private Eye, had been editor for 22 years. Richard, very happily, is still with us at the age of 80.
It is through their much more experienced eyes – and through meeting Oldie readers – that I see what it means to be an older person in 2018.
Freedom of speech and behaviour
Going all the way back to the ancient Greeks, people have wrongly assumed that the old are universally puritanical and grumpy.
That was never true. And it’s even less true now. There’s a freedom of speech and behaviour among the old that is depressingly withering among the young.
They are the generation of rationing, of minimal choice in the shops, of hugely expensive air travel
I recently went back to Oxford, where I was at university, to give careers advice. The undergraduates were universally polite and clever. But I was astonished how clean-living they were.
These advice sessions were held in a college bar from midday to six pm on a Sunday. Not a single undergraduate had an alcoholic drink in those six hours.
Now I’m not saying that they should have been getting drunk. And, 25 years ago, when I was there, not many undergraduates would be completely plastered. But they certainly would have had the odd drink.
The age before sobriety
I don’t blame the young. They have to pay tuition fees – which I didn’t – and they’re facing a much more competitive world.
But it’s sad they don’t have the time to lose a few hours to enjoy themselves, as the older generation does much more easily. At the Oldie Literary Lunches which we hold every month in London, the guests have a few drinks and are happy to chat away for three or four hours in the middle of the day.
A similar scene took place this week at Simpson’s in the Strand, where we were celebrating our annual Oldies of the Year lunch. Our prizes went to some immensely distinguished figures: Alan Ayckbourn, Geoffrey Palmer, Shirley Williams, Henry Blofeld and the transgender pioneer April Ashley.
And our biggest prize of all went to the extraordinary Dame Vera Lynn: she has just turned 100 and is still writing best-selling books and outselling all British female singers.
I must confess that I was worried that these exceptional people might take against the knockabout comedy of our other winner: our 21st Century Fox Oldie of the Year, Basil Brush.
But they were all immensely game, chatting away to Basil, and laughing at his jokes; all except the marvellous 90-year-old actor Geoffrey Palmer. He adopted his traditional poker face for the meeting – but only as an act; Geoffrey is immensely friendly and funny in the flesh.
The ironic, satirical approach
That easy-going attitude is typical of older people.
They have seen so much of life’s ups and downs that they develop – if they haven’t already got it – an ironic, satirical approach to life. As the Edwardian Prime Minister Arthur Balfour put it, “Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.”
Of course it’s easier to have that easy-going approach if you’re retired, have got a decent pension and are enjoying some well-earned pleasure after a lifetime of work.
But it’s tempting – and wrong – to look at the older generation and say, “They’ve had it so easy.”
They are the generation of low house prices, of lifetime careers with final pensions. Yes, maybe. But they are also the generation of rationing, of minimal choice in the shops, of hugely expensive air travel.
‘Keep buggering on’
The generation that actually fought in the Second World War are sadly disappearing. But their younger siblings and their children, born just before and during the War, are going strong.
They were brought up in a time of extreme austerity and deprivation. It can’t have been much fun at the time.
But it did develop in them a lack of self-indulgence; the keenness to keep buggering on; the ability to absorb the blows when things go wrong, when your knees start to go; the ability to laugh when you’re suddenly confronted by a fox puppet after a lifetime of distinguished service to entertainment, politics or sport.
Take it on the chin and move on. That is the attitude I wish I could develop; that I see so often in Oldie readers and contributors, and in the older generation at large. It’s a delight to know them.
Harry Mount is editor of The Oldie Magazine
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