Silver surfers refuse to grow old - rightly so!

Mrs Nurden woke up in a cold sweat and sat bolt upright.

“I can’t believe I’ve just spent the night with an old age pensioner!” she screamed.

At the stroke of midnight I had turned into an OAP.

In much the same way as nice little boys transmogrify into monosyllabic stroppy teenagers when they become 13, there is a similar effect on normally mild-mannered men when they become 65.

In my father’s day, they would retire from a lifetime’s work with the same company clutching a carriage clock and look forward to a few additional years shuffling around the house in paisley slippers and, very possibly, smoking a pipe.

But it seems times have changed.

Sixty has become the new 40.

There is now a generation of silver surfers who stubbornly refuse to grow old in much the same way as Peter Pan remained a boy.

Mrs Nurden simply believes I have become senile and reverted to something of a second childhood.

But, of course, that implies that I grew up and left my first childhood.

Most women I have spoken to find it difficult to come to terms with the concept of men reaching maturity.

They regard us with amusement and treat us like naughty boys.

It is, indeed, difficult for men like me to take life too seriously, especially when one has become a Papa and has a moral duty to lead the Boy Childs slightly astray.

Grandparents often joke that the best thing about having grandchildren is the ability to hand them back to their parents at the end of the day.

Certainly, a day is the maximum amount of time a grandparent can cope with a full-on youngster desperate to destroy a house and run around shouting at full volume.

But in all honesty we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Becoming a pensioner is going to be a challenge – but in a good way.