The Archers' Simon Williams on birthdays: 'A well-wisher tells me that Brad Pitt is older than Nigel Farage – is that supposed to be a comfort?'
I hadn’t really expected to be in my 70s so soon; like taxis in the rain, the birthdays go whizzing by. Luckily, I’m forever young on Sky Gold – and in Ambridge I can pass for man of 60. But in the real world, here I am with a bus pass and a replacement hip like everyone else. (I was born two months early, apparently – wrecking everyone’s Ascot week. Sorry, Mum.)
A well-wisher texts me that Brad Pitt is older than Nigel Farage – is that supposed to be a comfort? I surely don’t look as old as other 72-year-olds – school friends especially seem to have crumbled horribly. ‘You haven’t aged a bit,’ we tell each other, before comparing notes on pensions and prostates. ‘How often are you up in the night these days?’
I start most days feeling old, muddled and stiff – my dreams are getting weirder. But once I’ve had a stretch and a gallon of coffee I’m young again, and by lunchtime I’m back in my prime, boring the pants off people with memories of 10-bob notes and The Goon Show. In the mirror, I try to avoid looking myself in the eye – I’m six years older than my father ever was, so I count my lucky stars.
My children and grandchildren are always there to stop me getting cocky, flagging up each new deficiency. ‘Show Grampi which button to press for Net-flix, darling.’ One granddaughter saw me in an old movie and asked, ‘Wow, what’s that black hair you’re wearing?’
One new pleasure is finding things I didn’t know I’d lost. Packaging is my latest bête noire: a new toothbrush can take 20 minutes to unwrap, and yesterday a heat-sealed lump of Edam had to be hacked open with a screwdriver. (Useful tips from onlookers included, ‘Swearing doesn’t help, Simon.’) But there’s really no point in being patient at my age, I haven’t got all day.
Seeing me in an old movie, my granddaughter asked, ‘What’s that black hair you’re wearing?
As a child I reckoned old people were pretty disgusting and I now realise how right I was. Their sell-by dates were a thing of the past. You only had to look at their bathroom shelves to know that they had some murky secrets. The invitation to, ‘Come and give me a kiss,’ came at a price. First you were clasped to the midriff, then kissed on both cheeks, a multi-pronged pong: lavender, TCP, onions, tobacco, gin, three- in-one oil and a whiff of spaniel. I’d hold my breath, but by the time it got to the hair-ruffle and the ‘Goodness me, you’ve grown!’ I’d be faint for lack of air.
One thing not to do on your birthday is browse through your address book – all those friends who’ve gone on ahead, the ones you can’t delete. Blow them a kiss and rock on.
Simon plays Justin Elliott in The Archers and is in rehearsal for a new Alan Bennett play, Allelujah!
