We shall, in the words of another man at another time, stay forever young

Jan 22 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

STRANGERS often ask me for directions. This is a mistake, as they soon discover.

But, in my gait’s slight limp, caused by the congenital mishap of having the left leg a shaving or two shorter than the right one, and in the defiant tilt of my hat, they spot qualities, which, it would seem to them, could only belong to the true local.

“Observe how he pads the pavements, guided by feral instinct,” they say, from one to the other in the car that is pulling up a few yards ahead of me.

The window is wound down on the passenger side.

I blink and peer beneath the wary glow of the street-lamp, reaching deep into my senses, in the hope of summoning forth an expression both friendly and intelligent.

“You look like a native of these parts,” says the chap with the map on his knees, whose elbow juts through the window in the style of an anthropologist.

I scratch the lower folds of my right buttock and thrust my head back to yawn, before releasing that sound bestowed as a birthright on all those born in Birkenhead.

“Yew-whaaa,” (you what? is the translation most favoured by the folk-linguists).

“Do you know..?” asks the traveller and the name of some place is then offered.

“Ah yes, I know it well,” I reply and mist clouds my eyes.

“As children we walked there, in those days of eternal summer, and we carried with us our rods and nets, our sandwiches and our smiles, and we sat on the banks over the quiet water, where the tadpoles turned into frogs.

“Sometimes you could hear the melody of the nearby stream, which refreshed the pond.

“We were happy then.”

“Yes, yes, yes, but how do you get there,” says the man in the passenger seat, as his friend drums the steering wheel with his fingernails.

“Oh, you want to get there by road,” I say.

“Sadly, I can only travel there in my memory now. For they filled-in the pond and they drove the stream underground and then they built an estate and supermarket, where once children had played.”

But long before my words were finished, the car had disappeared into the concrete distance.

I was left alone on the pavement, contemplating the directions of life.

When I was young, I never really knew where I was going.

Ambition had not settled in my soul.

I thought then that it would be better to have one short story published than to be the chairman of ICI, the Prime Minister, the town clerk or the Archbishop of Canterbury, though I would have preferred to be a member of The Kinks.

I never planned life, or “forward planned” it, as the thrilling young people say today. I just thought it would happen anyway.

It is true that some of my friends were determined on particular courses of action, which would lead to a house, a family and a sensible pension to pay for the carpet slippers and day trips, but others simply drifted along, hoping to pick-up a little wisdom here and a little luck there. Somehow, things worked out well, despite some bumps and rude awakenings down the way.

I have a wonderful wife and son. Yet, I am still haunted by the words of a former colleague, who told me that as a student she had vowed to be a head of department before she was 30.

This is the age that beckons you towards the crossroads, as it stands there grinning cunningly.

“Whither now, old bean?” it seems to ask.

Now a different colleague has reached 30, though I don’t think she has ever been quite so precise in the planning of her life.

But for many late-developers, 30 was the time when young toes first felt the chill of adult life.

The strange thing is that, at almost twice her age, I still feel young.

Perhaps those of us, who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, are now branded as the grumpy old men/women, but it seems to me that in this grumpiness lies an undiminished desire to rebel.

We shall, in the words of another man at another time, stay forever young.

You see, as I have explained to my colleague – when I was 31, she was one. That made me 31 times older than her.

But now I am only twice her age.

It appears that the youngsters are catching up fast.

Even if I had planned for life, I would not have anticipated that arithmetic would come to my aid.

But I still have no idea of where I am going, so don’t me ask for directions.

LISTEN to David Charters on his picture podcast at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk