Raymond Briggs
One of the great bugbears of old age is coming across things you used to do so easily, regularly and without even thinking; and now, when you try to do them, you realise they are completely beyond you. So much so that you may never do them again. It’s difficult to take in. Liz and I used to walk up to the church and back, almost every morning, before going to work. Only about half an hour or so. Nowadays, on my own, I usually go in the opposite direction as it is a smooth tarmac surface, whereas the church way is a woodland track, muddy and stony, with puddles and fallen branches.
Furthermore, old age makes you realise it is hilly. There is a long slope down to the wooden bridge over the stream, then a long slope up to the church. Quite slippery when wet.
The good thing about the woodland track is that it is sheltered and out of the wind. So, as today was quite windy, I thought I’d go that way for the first time in months. Got down to the bridge and realised I couldn’t go any further, particularly because it is uphill from then on. So, after a short rest, I started back, but then realised it is uphill all the way home! Never before noticed these hills.
But it is not only physical. The aged brain also quite often finds itself at a loss. A few days ago, I was asked if I would do a telephone interview about When The Wind Blows, my book about nuclear war, published in 1982. The British Film Institute was showing the film of WTWB and asked me to go to it. It was good to be asked, but the thought of flogging all the way up to London in the dark, the cold and the rain, then home again, hoping to get back before midnight... all at the age of 84. Blow that for a lark. No, thank you.
Years ago, when I got to seventy, I made two resolutions: 1. in the mornings, I am not going to get up in the dark; 2. in the evenings, I am not going to go up to London after dark. Don’t mind coming back in the dark; that seems natural, inevitable. This was fourteen years ago when I was a sprightly young kiddie, scarcely seventy.
So, reluctantly, I thought I’d better do the interview. Don’t mind telephone interviews too much: no one coming to the house, no coffee-making and pseudo-socialising and, above all, no cameras, let alone TV cameras.
I dug out the paperback book which I hadn’t looked at for years; it says on the cover, ‘A runaway bestseller in hardback – soon to be a major film.’ On opening the book, I was astounded to see the amount of work in it. Counted well over 800 speech bubbles, all with minute Hand-lettering! I could not possibly do that today. As always, the writing is the easy bit; but then there’s the designing of the pages to fit the exact number in the book, the layout of each page; then the typography or, worse still, hand-lettering.
No – sorry – thank you. I am far too old for all that. I realise now, like it or not, that I have retired.
Well, semi-retired, I suppose.