Long life
Oldies enjoy sex too
Nigel Nicolson
That is like saying that The Yachtsman is intended for philatelists. The Oldie never defined its market. In this valedictory issue, there is a long article by Auberon Waugh deploring the burden that old parents impose on their children and advocating for them 'some sort of euthanasia', which cannot have been of great comfort to read- ers over 70. Then there is Patrick Heron on Constable's drawings, interesting but irrele- vant, and Adam Moore on an arduous trek through the ICarakorams unsuited to any- one (for I have done it) over 45. It is also assumed that oldies must be uninterested in sex or politics. The nearest approach to sex occurs in a pathetic small ad: 'Mature attractive lady escort for stylish gentlemen for all occasions% and to politics in another ad: 'Stuff your nasty little EC passport into lookalike British passport covers'. There is a certain jauntiness about the magazine, like an elderly woman in shorts, that dis- mays without shocking. It imparts neither energy nor solace. It tells us that Meccano is still available, presumably for our second childhood, but not what oldies really want to know, how to make a will or an omelette.
The truth is that oldies do not form a coherent group except by age, which is not enough. Our interests have diverged too much in a long life for us to be targeted by a publisher as he might target teenagers, bee-keepers or brides. The variety of exist- ing magazines already gives us a choice more than ample to satisfy any lingering intellectual or prurient needs.
But if we do not form a collective audi- ence, we do share disadvantages for which the magazine might have offered us some consolation. Among them is forgetfulness. It is not an intolerable burden, but it is undeniably a social impediment. Things have come to a pretty pass when Peregrine Worsthorne, questioned about the British monarchy cannot remember why he sup- ports it, and when I, staring at the bath- taps as I have stared at them for 30 years, cannot recall which is the hot tap and which the cold, or worse still, can introduce my daughter as her younger sister.
If young people owe the old a certain patience with these shortcomings, let us never forget that the same duty operates in reverse. It is not advisable to start every other sentence with the words, 'When I was Consul-General in Dar es Salaam', or to deplore to excess modem tastes in music, food or holidays, or to go to the opposite extreme, and dress at 75 as if for the Club Mediterrane. We cannot conciliate the young by aping them. Indeed we should find them slightly formidable. There has been no more telling pause since Prince Charles's stumbling confession to Jonathan Dimbleby than John Prescott's when he hesitated after congratulating Tony Blair on his election, and added, 'He scares the life out of the Tories ... and me.' That's the style that might have saved The Oldie from perdition.
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