You are never too old for adventure
FROM THE DAREDEVIL DAD OF TORY PEER WILLIAM HAGUE...
I AM fed up with so-called experts scaring older people by telling them not to go out in the hot weather, don’t do this and don’t eat that. My advice is, if you are reasonably fit, do the things you are not supposed to do if you are old! I have just turned 90, had prostate cancer five years ago and, after falling down on the ice in March, had a hip replacement eight weeks ago. I walk two miles a day and hope to get back to my former daily six miles. Since I turned 80, I have raised almost £1.2 million for good causes including the NSPCC, Save the Children and Lost Chord, the dementia charity. I also do stunts, some of which are listed on the jokey business card my drinking pals made for me. I have gone skydiving, been wing-walking three times (including once across the Channel from Dunkirk to Kent), done mountain climbing in the Lake District, and been abseiling and deer-stalking. I go to the pub every night to enjoy a lot of laughs with my pals, and always have done. I have cut down on the booze — I can only manage two pints of Guinness or half a bottle of red wine. I have no time for the PC idiots or all that hogwash about global warming. My diet consists of mainly fried food and I don’t care for greens and fruit. I say to old folk: go out and enjoy yourselves and take no notice of the do-gooders and doctors. There are more old drunkards than old doctors. My son William is mentioned on my business card — I am proud to be special adviser to the former Foreign Secretary. He gave me a great party for my 90th birthday. I opened his new library for him and made a speech, which he said reminded him of a Texas Longhorn: a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between!
NIGEL HAGUE, Helmsley, N. Yorks.