Tempus keeps fugitting …
Life has a habit of throwing up happy accidents and/or random interventions that either prove to be decidedly fortuitous or indeed quite the opposite. Only the other day the publisher of this organ mentioned in a conversation that its founders’ original mission had only ever been “to do something that they wanted to do”: the fact that it has subsequently turned into one of the most powerful multi-national media organisations on the planet (for which we are all very grateful, of course) has almost defied both logic and belief.
However – as they say – “we are where we are” and must deal with it.
One of the Rust’s themes in its quests to document both the vagaries of growing older and pass comment upon modern 21st Century life as it is lived by generations younger and more technologically proficient (but perhaps less savvy than?) our own is the effect of the passage of time.
Last week one of my fellow columnist’s posts touched upon a phenomenon that affects most of the human race – that subtle disconnect between “how old we personally accept we are” and our capacity to notice and/or point out the seniority of those who, from time to time and for whatever reason, appear in the public eye and may be our contemporaries or even our juniors.
I had my own brush with the issue yesterday when meeting up with my brother Bill in London to discuss a number of family matter ranging from the great to the small.
It is worth adding here that I have just entered my eighth decade and Bill is some two and a half years younger.
As we come from a sporty family, playing and watching a number of sports and pastimes has been a constant in both our lives.
For his sins, Bill has kept in touch with a wide range of pals since his schooldays – picking up others along the way at university, through social/family gatherings and friendships, work and hobbies.
He has also maintained his playing interests in cricket and golf – both games from which retirement (if ever) can be postponed for considerable periods – partly by personally instigating and managing two informal annual golf tournaments plus an “occasionals” nomadic cricket team that – back in the day – used to play four or five times a summer but in recent times has reduced itself to one annual “all comers” match.
In my own case I played my last “semi-serious” game of rugby union at the age of 41 for my school “old boys” XV – perhaps ill-advisedly, because inside the first ten minutes a ruck collapsed on top of me and I cracked two ribs, one of the most painful injuries I have ever suffered!
I then retired from playing cricket – which, as it happens, by then was then only for my brother Bill’s team anyway – at the age of 52 or 53, I can no longer recall which – following an otherwise very enjoyable match one August, when I realised that my “fast twitch” reflex muscles were “shot”.
Although at the time, as a batsman, I could still “time” the ball onto the bat tolerably well, there were two “give-away” symptoms that convinced me my decision was prudent.
In my youth I had operated as something of a left-hand fast bowler whom, like the great Gary Sobers, could also turn my skills to bowling “slow left arm” (I could produce a half-decent “Chinaman”, the leftie’s off-spinner that came out of the back of the hand).
By my fifties, when it came my turn to bowl, I did so by deploying my spinner’s skills.
However, the previous year – and indeed the one immediately after which I retired – I found that, try as I might, as I bowled each ball, I no longer had the rhythm to get the ball to bounce on the pitch proper: instead it soared in a parabola the complete length of the sward and straight into the wicketkeeper’s hands (if he was lucky!).
The second “tell-tale” signal that my cricketing career might be over was the state of my fielding.
I deliberately identified the pastures of the square leg boundary as my territory but found that – whenever I saw any batsmen “stand square” and make to pull or hook the ball in my direction, and immediately then sprang into action by getting down in the fielder’s classic “side on” position to receive a ball hurtling ball towards me … the bloody pill had already passed me on its way to the boundary before I had been able to do so!
That was it – and I retired.
In our meeting yesterday – talking about his golf and cricketing plans for this summer – my junior brother Bill not only announced that he had told regular attenders at his annual golf tournaments (both of which have been running over 35 years) that – simply because of everyone’s stage of life – he could not see either of them continuing for longer than another three or four.
Furthermore, in addition, he had advised devotees of his annual cricket match that this year’s version was to be the last.
I could see where he was coming from.
I have not personally enjoyed the last three of Bill’s annual golf tournaments – there’s precious little fun to be had when (over the entirety of an 18 hole round) one “connects” satisfactorily with one’s ball only once or twice!
Now the possessor of an “Over 70s” driving licence – which I think has to be renewed every three years, including by providing evidence of a “positive” 
eyesight test – it occurred to me that (come what may) I cannot in all honesty see myself driving on the roads of Britain beyond the age of 80.
Ho hum.
