LIKE VINTAGE WINE

Swooning into your vintage years has some compensations. Or at least if you search long enough. I am having trouble with my teeth so I bit on the bullet – which is something I shall have to stop doing – and went to get some dental implants. Not the loveliest experience but there was one compensation. I had to be dressed in a surgical outfit, in fetching blue. There was a hat, little slippers for my feet and a full-body gown. I grew concerned thinking the dental nurse had confused me with the dentist but no. I was presumably a germy danger to my own health. But I pretended I was Dr Kildare, Dr Finlay or better still George Clooney in ER. I looked exactly like one or the other of them but in blue.

The cast of BBC’s Dr Finlay’s Casebook. Dr Filay, Janet and Dr Cruikshank.

Other compensations I thought of this week include:

I was not elected Pope. I may have been in with a chance but for the fact that I can’t speak Italian and have only been to church for weddings and funerals. Then when I saw that Leo XIV had to swap his swish bright cardinal robes for a rather less exciting white outfit, I felt that my failure to win the position was something to be pleased about.

The other topical compensation was that I was too young to fight in World War II, with VE Day commemorated this week although not without some political leaders point scoring. You can almost hear them thinking, ‘We won the war more than you did.’ Whereas everyone was a loser to some degree or other.

This got me thinking about my parents. They were born in the 1920s and had they known it, were members of what was later termed The Greatest Generation. My dad would have liked that, my mum would have been slightly disdainful, at least on the surface. They had what has been called a good war, they survived to have a wonderful son, and my brother.

In fact, three of my mother’s brothers, two brothers-in-law and her future husband were all in the armed services. Uncle Doug was in the merchant navy where he was torpedoed, spending ten days in a lifeboat. He got back safely and almost immediately limped off to man one of the boats rescuing troops from Dunkirk. He got back safely from that as well. Uncle Nobby was a wireless operator who landed on the Normandy Beaches on D Day. He never said why but he was mentioned in despatches so he must have done something brave. Uncle Mick and Uncle George met up by chance in the last week of the war in Rome. They were smiling like troopers, which is what they were. They suffered grievous injury that day, waking up the next morning with terrible hangovers.

My dad had a good war despite throwing a live hand grenade feebly in the air during training only to see it drop back to earth at his feet. Fortunately, the corporal picked it up and threw it properly just before it exploded. Dad also volunteered for air crew but dithered so much on the quick reaction test that he was deemed unsuitable. At that time the crew of Bomber Command were suffering 80% casualties so I’m glad he dithered.

As a 19-year-old air raid warden in the Blitz, my mum put out an incendiary bomb by dropping a sandbag on it. She came closer to injury after she joined the army where an American sergeant tried to woo her by firing what he thought was an unloaded rifle at her. It contained a live bullet but fortunately he was a lousy shot. So, all in all, unlike many others, my family were lucky indeed. Most of them lived until their 80s, my dad until aged 96. But all who lived and died in that war were truly members of The Greatest Generation.

Which brings me to my final point. I noticed that mum and dad seemed to get frail at about the age of 84. It so happens that on the anniversary of VE Day, I saw a podcast about how to thrive in your 80s so decided to watch it.

Here is what the commentator had to say. Goodness knows who he was, he may even have been a dentist or someone who has delusions about being George Clooney, Richard Chamberlain or Bill Simpson aka Dr Finlay. His five pieces of advice seem pretty sensible to me.

1. Engage in micro socialisations. Chat with your neighbours, speak to shop cashiers instead of ordering online or fighting with the self-service cash desks, talk to strangers, especially those wearing blue surgical gowns, hats and slippers.

2. Do something regular every day. Go for a walk, listen to a favourite radio programme, pick up the phone to talk with a friend, tend to your plant pots.

3. Sleep more soundly, help this by getting outside and imbibing the light – and dim your lights and avoid screens for an hour before going to bed.

4. When you go out, be brave. In where you go, what you explore and how you do so. Being sensible about it, of course, as you’re now in your vintage years.

5. Ah, I’ve forgotten his fifth point. Probably something to do with improving your memory.

Oh yes, I remember now. It was to have some purpose in life. Even if it’s reading Martin Lake’s Substack posts and sharing it with your friends.

Cheers to all my readers, Vintage or younger.