When I was growing up in the 70s, we all snored in our house – me, my mum and dad, and Prince, our Alsatian dog. My father worked night-shifts in a distillery, leading to the somewhat comical situation whereby we took it in turns to “call the hogs”.
I would go to bed at 8pm and start up the snoring roundelay, my mother would bring in reinforcements around midnight and my father would proudly take the heavy-breathing baton at sunrise.
If we ever happened to be in the land of the living at the same time, we could rely on Prince not to let the side down, with his impressive repertoire of shut-eyed snuffling, ranging from the adorably cute to the downright blood-curdling.
I would have no more tried to rid myself of my snoring than I would have my West Country accent or my awful teeth; it was a bond which kept me spiritually grounded to my calf-country when fame and fortune came knocking almost half a century ago.
My husband of 30 years – who has heard more of my silly symphonies than most – describes it at its majestic peak as “like an old aeroplane with a wonky propellor being slowly eaten by a whale who has a really bad cold. The other striking thing about it was the way it would just suddenly STOP so I would go from being really annoyed one minute to panicking about your imminent death the next.”
This is the dreaded “sleep apnoea” which, according to The Independent, is “a stop-start breathing condition which affects around 1.5 million adults in the UK, causes loud snoring, gasping, snorting and choking noises during sleep. The condition can lead to serious health issues including high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and stroke.”
Or indeed, it could just be snoring, as it has been for billions of people since the first cavewoman said “Right, that’s enough – you’re sleeping under the stars tonight, you big lummox!” Never mind, here comes “a daily epilepsy drug which could reduce snoring symptoms for millions of sufferers” as “a new study presented at the European Respiratory Society congress shows that sulthiame causes a reduction in symptoms for the breathing condition.”
Some people are genuinely ill and snoring can be a symptom of that – but for the vast majority, snoring is simply snoring. Here I am, at 65 a healthy old lady. I have none of the busted knees or replaced hips of friends sometimes two decades younger than me, who made a thing of “wellness” for all those years when my idea of wellness was drinking only rosé – “breakfast wine” – before noon.
I sense that my hardiness is partly good genes, but also partly my refusal to overanalyse my funny little ways. I’m not an alcoholic – I’m a drunk. I don’t have ADHD – I’m a fidget. When I looked out of the window a few weeks back and felt momentarily miserable because it was raining in August, I didn’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder – I was just hoping for a day at the beach. If you want to medicalise your problems and thus give your life meaning, you go ahead. But my life has way enough meaning, and I don’t need more.
I was that unusual thing, a fat cocaine fiend, and now I am neither the nocturnal cacophony has eased off somewhat. But I’ll always be a spiritual snorer, and find the attempt to foist a cure on people yet another way of nannying us to be “attractive” into our dotage, as with post-menopausal women prancing around squealing about the wonders of HRT. If you want to be strapped to your sexuality like the corpse of El Cid being tied to his horse for one more rally, fine.
For me, though, I was vain as a young woman, and the idea of making myself sexy as a sexagenarian seems exhausting. As a friend put it: “Free from the tyranny of tits and ass at last!”
And as the wit Jim Owen says: “There’s something hilarious about ageing, and the speed with which it picks up once you’re 60 makes you feel like you’re watching one of those stop-frame films of decaying flowers.”
A lot of health is down to luck – look at poor Princess Catherine, the sportiest of people – and perhaps it scares people to admit that. My nocturnal noises may well have made me a less desirable intimate partner throughout my life. Though as the one who’s generally done the scarpering from relationships, I’ll never know.
But if I get a bedroom to myself – and all the luxury of freedom that comes with it – I’m more than happy to hang on to my snoring.
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