The Old Un’s Notes
In the Spring issue, we announced a Wilde Wit Competition, run by the Oscar Wilde Society and The Oldie.
There are so many fake Wilde quotes online now that the Society and The Oldie thought our gifted readers should devise their own faux mots.
Of the 400 entries, the winner was Darcy Alexander Corstorphine, with the masterly line ‘I am frequently misquoted – often accurately.’
Second equal were: ‘To learn from experience is good – to learn from someone else’s experience is better’ by Colin Mayo; and ‘An insult from the right person can be quite as agreeable as any compliment’ — Darcy Alexander Corstorphine again.
In third place came Joke Kokkelkoren, an artist, with ‘All great art is the result of beautiful failures.’
The runners-up were: ‘The advantage of marriage is that it makes adultery possible’ (Ashley Hugh Robins); ‘With regard to the Protestant work ethic, I have always been a devout Catholic’ (Tim Marshall); ‘The only thing worse than not finishing a witticism is…’ (David Binder); ‘I’m only human, and only just’ (John Larkin).
Gyles Brandreth, The Oldie’s favourite Wildean, once made up an Oscar line for one of his Wilde murder mysteries:
‘There is nothing quite like an unexpected death for lifting the spirits.’
The line has since appeared in two anthologies of humorous quotations, credited to Oscar, not poor Gyles.
If only Oscar himself had entered the competition.
‘How I love to imitate myself,’ he said – or did he?
Oldies rule the world. Readers of The Oldie knew this already, of course. And now it’s confirmed in Camilla Cavendish’s new book, Extra Time – 10 Lessons for an Ageing World.
By 2020, she says, for the first time in history there will be more people on the planet over 65 than under five. That’s for two reasons.
First, we’re living longer. In the 20th century, in most developed countries average life expectancy increased by 30 years.
And, secondly, women are having fewer children. In 1964, the average woman had just over five children. In 2015, she had 2.5.
All this means that we all have to think about how to deal with the extra years modern generations have ahead of them.
Cavendish’s book is optimistic about people she calls the Young Old, given an extended period of healthy activity in late middle age. We all tend to underestimate how long we’ll live – because we think our lifespans will match our grandparents’, when in fact we’re overwhelmingly likely to live longer.
One of Cavendish’s inspired ways of dealing with longer lives is to count our ages backwards: that is, instead of defining people by how many birthdays they’ve had, define them by how many years they’ve got left.
Of course, that’s impossible. None of us knows exactly when we’re going to die. But having a rough estimate of how long you’ve got left to live is a more effective method of estimating whether you’re old or young than an arbitrary retirement date set by the state.
The man who came up with this insight is CanadianAmerican demographer Norman Ryder, who worked out in the 1970s that your expected lifespan is a better indicator than your age of your need for state support.
‘If you don’t consider people old just because they reached age 65, but instead take into account how long they have left to live, then the faster the increase in life expectancy, the less ageing is actually going on,’ says Sergei Scherbov, a Vienna demographer; ‘200 years ago, a 60-year-old would have been a very old person. Someone who is 60 years old today is middle-aged.’
The Old Un is extremely grateful for this new world view; for the way it flips his mind forwards. Instead of thinking of all the years left behind him in morose regret, he looks ahead to the extra years the 21st century has granted us.
This June marks the 70th anniversary of that funniest of films, Kind Hearts and Coronets, as Matthew Norman writes on page 10.
To celebrate the anniversary, the film will be rereleased, fully restored, in cinemas on 7th June, and on DVD on 24th June.
The direction of Robert Hamer, who co-wrote the screenplay with John Dighton, dovetails with the sublime performance of Dennis Price as Louis Mazzini.
To become the Duke of Chalfont, the broke Mazzini must wade through blood and kill eight members of the D’ascoyne family – all played by Alec Guinness (who also plays the 7th Duke in a flashback).
With Joan Greenwood as croaky-voiced temptress Sibella, and Valerie Hobson as the high-minded, virtuous Edith D’ascoyne, the Ealing comedy never dates.
Cinematic perfection.
For decades, Britain has not treated its finest illustrators and cartoonists well.
The late, extremely great Ronald Searle was a modest soul – but even he acknowledged that he was treated with more respect in France (where he moved to) and Germany than in his native Britain.
There are welcome signs that all this is changing. The publisher Thames & Hudson is starting a new series, The Illustrators, celebrating illustration as an art form and showcasing some of the world’s most significant illustrators.
One of the first titles in the series features Oldie favourite Posy Simmonds, creator of Tamara Drewe, Gemma Bovery and, last year,
Cassandra Darke. The book includes interviews with Posy and never-before-seen material including her sketches and photographs, which reflect her pinprickperfect understanding of human behaviour, dress and poses.
The new book coincides with the first major UK retrospective of Posy Simmonds (24th May-15th September 2019) at the House of Illustration in King’s Cross, north London.
At last, British cartoonists and illustrators may no longer be treated as prophets without honour in their own country.
The painter Charles Debenham, 86, is exhibiting in Essex – in Chappel Galleries, Chappel (until 2nd June).
Debenham, trained at Colchester School of Art, is rooted in the area. He remembers meeting Sir Alfred Munnings as a boy. But unlike Munnings and those other distinguished artists from the area, Gainsborough and Constable, Debenham delights in less conventional beauty – a chip shop in Manningtree, a tattoo studio in Colchester or a spiky tree in Sudbury (pictured). He is the Edward Hopper of the Essex/suffolk borders.
David Frost was a Debenham fan. Debenham told the Old Un that, on delivering his painting to
Frostie at his London home, he was greeted by a familiar ‘Hello, Charles, good morning and welcome.’
The Old Un’s grumpy pin-up, Ed Reardon, has, thank God, returned to Radio 4, as Valerie Grove celebrates on page 69.
In one episode of the new series of Ed Reardon’s Week, he mocks the idea of obsessive positivity and saying ‘Yes’ to everything.
At the risk of disagreeing with the Sage of Berkhamsted, the Old Un maintains that good things really can happen if you say yes more.
This relentlessly enthusiastic philosophy is lived and breathed by adventurer and explorer Dave Cornthwaite, founder of Sayyesmore, a social enterprise that nudges people out of their comfort zones. His positive attitude to life has attracted enough followers to kickstart an entire movement. His epiphany came when he realised that his day job was making him less happy than his cat.
Not one to mope around, he set off to break some weird and wonderful world records (skateboarding the length of Britain, for instance).
Finding out what he’s capable of led him to form Sayyesmore. Since its launch in June 2015, it’s grown to a community of more than 6,500 doers. They’ve held three Yestivals, promoting the positive, and organised more than 300 events.
Clearly, Cornthwaite is on to something. If the modern
world can feel isolating and increasingly inward-looking, this is exactly what is missing – an invitation to adventure, whether it’s a weekend of wild camping, cycling the length of Britain or just being a little bit more open-minded.
Just say yes.
The brilliantly original cartoonist John Glashan died 20 years ago, on 15th June 1999, aged 71.
Terry Gilliam called Glashan ‘a great national monument’. His Times obituary described how his drawings, ‘developing as they did into miniature visual
plays, bore more relation to the work of Hogarth, Piranesi or Saul Steinberg than to routine strips such as Andy Capp’. And George Melly said, ‘He draws the human condition in general rather than localised characteristics. His cartoons are algebra, not arithmetic.’
The pictures also had a subtle social commentary underlying the adjoining words. This 1986 Time Out cartoon, of Westminster Abbey, skewers the problem of London homelessness. Plus ça change…
Who says that retirement means slowing down? There’s a ballerina inside all of us, just waiting to be set free – and the proof is the Company of Elders, a professional dancing troupe that is made up exclusively of the over-60s (the oldest is 89).
Founded in 1989 and managed by Sadler’s Wells in London, the company meets once a week for practice and has travelled across Europe with their lively performances. The 19 dancers cite improved levels of fitness, confidence and creativity as well as a newfound camaraderie since joining. ‘Dancing for me is a need, a natural condition,’ says Betsy Field, who joined in 2001. ‘I feel 20 years younger.’
There may not be as many pirouettes and jaw-dropping acrobatics as we’ve come to expect from modern ballet, but the shows are delicate and moving nonetheless – and there has even been a bit of hip-hop.
‘A typical dancer is somebody’s who’s openminded and willing to accept who they are, to dig deeper and to find new ways of moving and explore new possibilities,’ says Elaine Foley, projects manager at Sadler’s Wells.
Putting your best food forward has never seemed so appealing – catch them at Sadler’s Wells on 14th June.
A century ago, in June 1919, the Old Un’s favourite furniture-maker, Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson (1876-1955), carved his first mouse.
The Mouseman’s furniture business, in Kilburn, North Yorkshire, included a charming little wooden mouse on most of its pieces.
Thompson started the practice, it’s said, when carving a cornice for a screen, having just had a chat about being ‘as poor as a church mouse’.
The company still thrives in Yorkshire, still incorporating mice into furniture. Long may they continue to squeak.