Do we fear old people?

I went to a dinner at college the other day, and admired much smooth, dewy skin. The boat club invited Alumni along, either in the hope they would give more money, or in gratitude that they had stumped up for a new boat. Personally, I was aggrieved that the women have fallen so far down the divisions, and a little irritated by the low standards evident in their speeches. They mentioned being good at sending group WhatsApps as an example of “being such a great organiser”. Back when I did that job, a short notice change of plan didn’t happen, because it would have entailed knocking on everyone’s door to let them know, after going to the computer room to send the email. Even worse, it appears that their crew training was made up of whoever they could get into the boat to form an eight for a given outing. That’s not how you achieve the mystery of a perfect stroke. You need eight hearts beating as one, a unity of mind that only really appears after a good six months of pain and commitment and breaking the ice on the surface of the water as you put the boat in.

They all have no idea what 1998 was like. Neither do I any more, because I’m now 45, not 20. I knew that I knew nothing, which is why I got a data entry job when I graduated, but one thing I didn’t know at all is how much power there was in youth. I look at my kids, and stroke their smooth, poreless skin in amazement.

The man at the end of the table was at Oxford in 1951. I stupidly didn’t ask him if he was in the crew that won eights (really too boring to explain to anyone who doesn’t row, but a big thing), but established that he did chemical engineering. The 18 year old girl on my left was also studying chemical engineering, so she went over at the end of dinner to ask him more. His friend was also over 90, but didn’t talk at all. He merely sat, looking around the hall with an expression of deep sadness, as if realising that coming back to the site of his youthful glories was failing to invigorate his frail thoughts. I sometimes feel the same. Oxford has become less magical than it was at the time; just another place. Whilst I have not forgotten the worst parts of it, the sense of claustrophobia has gone, unfortunately along with an inability to fully relive the memory of huge elation at my successes, which were really only rowing. I stood by the river, and although I could almost touch that feeling in my mind, it was blurry and receding.

It was perhaps fitting we watched M Night Shyamalan’s Old. It’s a good movie. The trailer is a bit of a spoiler, so it’s not giving anything away to say it’s about a bunch of people trapped on a beach that makes them age 50 years in a day. I loved the way the couple who in their youth (i.e. the previous hour) were caught up in the drama of their relationship squabbles. Then as they age, they say “I can’t remember what we were fighting about. It doesn’t matter. I just know I love you”.

The film is about fear though; fear of life passing you by, blink and you’ll miss it. The narrative device of accelerated ageing makes this very evident, with a six year old being in the fifties by the following morning. He did indeed miss out on his life, but we all think we are, even as we live it. I know I think that all the time, that other people are doing more with their time. They probably are, but at least on my B Real (somewhat self selecting),I find most people are sitting in the garden at the same time as I am, and smiling with a glass of wine on the sofa.

I looked at those two old men, and feared being the silent one, whilst hoping to be the chatty one still talking with all his faculties about engineering, and looking back at the past in vague fondness, rather than devastation at the end of the party.