I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon (possibly)

Idug a right hole for myself the other week. It was the day of the solar eclipse in America. You must remember it? It was the day a load of Americans wore funny glasses.

I was putting my seven-year-old daughter Mary to bed and I thought about the eclipse and decided it would be a good educational lesson to quickly explain what it is and show her a picture.

She was – as I’d hoped – really interested and, after gazing in awe at the video I showed her on my phone, asked when we’d be able to see one in this country.

It so happened I’d heard earlier on the news that the next full eclipse in Britain is in the year 2090, so I told her.

“I can’t wait to sit and watch it together,” she said, looking up at me excitedly.

Without really thinking, I replied, “Oh, I’ll be long gone by then.”

“What do you mean?” she replied, looking confused.

I felt slightly uneasy and realised I may have made a slight error, but felt it too late to doubleback.

“Well,” I said, shifting uncomfortably on the bed, and then adding with maybe slightly more bluntness than intended, “I’ll be dead by then.” She looked up at me with terror in her eyes. “Well, in 2090 I’d be aged 114,” I said, adopting a more gentle tone and with a reassuring smile on my face.

It was at this point – and bear in mind this was the moment I was about to leave her for the night – that she dissolved into tears and started sobbing uncontrollably.

“Erm, hang on,” I said panicking, “I mean I might be here. Some people live that long and so, yeah, we could watch the next eclipse together.”

She looked up at me with a tear-stained face, suddenly a glimmer of hope in her red-watery eyes.

"So people do live that long, till they’re 100?” she asked.

“Well sometimes,” I said, trying to tread the fine line between truth and outright whopping lie.

“Google it,” she said, as only a child of the 21st century could. Apparently less than one per cent of us achieve it.

Holding the phone well away for her, and deciding the time had come to dispense with the truth entirely, I said, “Aw, we don’t need to worry. It says loads of people live that long.”

I do sympathise because I distinctly remember going through a period as a youngster where I spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about dying and fretting about the fact I wouldn’t be here forever.

That said, with what’s going on in Israel and Iran and everywhere else at the moment, chances are none of us will be here to worry about it...