Former glories often locked in memories past

Ian Cole dwells on ageing and how the hungry present consumes all relevance

IT is quite possible for the young to make judgments about older people based on how they see them at the present. At times this can be invalid. Grandchildren in some instances may only remember grandparents or great grandparents as very elderly, or chairbound, or extremely sick, or possessing a faded memory or a combination of some of those.

Sometimes it may take a eulogy at a funeral of an older person for younger ones, including family members, to realise that the departed person was once young and in their prime had a different life.

Older people can be judged unjustly by their present circumstances rather than their past. This can be especially true if their present situation is not a flattering one, maybe due to ill-health or bad luck. It doesn’t mean necessarily that their past was not productive, that it did not contain achievement, wasn’t constructive, profitable and even prosperous.

The film The Lady in the Van is a good example. It is mainly the true story of Margaret Fairchild, a lady who for various reasons is living on the street, except in her case it is in a van. Her circumstance in the film is one of a derelict or a “down and out”. Yet in her prime she was a young woman of rare musical ability who once performed at a Promenade Concert playing Chopin.

She was judged by all who saw her in the street by her present circumstances, not her past, which was unknown to them. A performance by Noni Hazlehurst in the stage production Mother looks at the treatment by others of a woman’s present circumstances. She is also down and out. Another who comes to mind in similar circumstances was actor Terry Thomas, who in his later years was found to be in extreme poverty and living off charity. Yet in the 1950s and 1960s he starred in many films as a loveable villain, where he was greatly appreciated by audiences at the zenith of his career.

Of course, there are those who lead a venerated life in their older years and younger generations may again be unaware of their achievements in their earlier years. Former governor of Victoria, John Landy, may not be recognised by younger people as a former Olympic athlete and the same for former governor of South Australia, Marjorie Jackson, who was an athlete known as the Lithgow Flash.

And on the local scene, I was not aware as a student at Hobart High School in the 1960s that the respected and highly esteemed Maths Master, G.V. Rush, played VFL football for Richmond and only missed playing in a grand final due to injury.

However, some of this can come down to the fact there is an exaggerated importance of the present at the expense of the past. I’ll plead guilty myself. When playing and watching footy in the 1960s “old timers” would come and chew my ear about players in the 1930s and my eyes would glaze over. Now, when the young ones talk about Dustin Martin and Buddy Franklin and I interpose with names like Darrel Baldock and Ian Stewart, I get back the blank looks that I gave 50 years ago.

But back to my main point. Older people may be judged invalidly by their present circumstances, especially if their present situation is a difficult one and possibly not of their making. Some however do admit they were the cause of their final circumstances.

Northern Ireland and Manchester United soccer superstar George Best was once asked in his later years, where all the money he had made playing soccer had gone. He replied he spent much on “booze, birds and fast cars, while the rest he just squandered”. Despite that, they named the airport at Belfast after him.

In short, as older people we still may have the choice of growing old gracefully or disgracefully.

As far as the past is concerned, we may like to be remembered in our prime rather than remembered for our other years.

However, as we trawl through our past in our minds, unlike Miss Jean Brodie, we may be a little unsure of when we were in our prime.

But probably the past is best summed up by British writer L.P. Hartley who said that “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there”.