TOM UTLEY: The faculty reunion with my very eminent friends

We are all purported to be shocked, apparently, by the information that kids as younger as 4 are likely to see us oldies as a bit decrepit.

This proves, we’re advised, that unfavorable stereotypes concerning the aged are deeply entrenched in our society, and that Something Must Be Done (although it isn’t fairly clear what) to root it out.

Such, anyway, is the view of campaigners in opposition to ageism, who gave proof this week to the Commons Women and Equalities Committee.

Said Caroline Abrahams, director of the charity Age UK: ‘What demonstrates how pervasive ageist attitudes are, individuals have requested younger kids to attract what they assume an older individual appears like.

‘You get little drawings of an outdated woman with a stick, when really you’ve gotten grandparents of their 40s. It goes to indicate kids are selecting it up.’

Forgive me, however I discover it onerous to get sizzling underneath the collar about these younger artists’ efforts.

Leave apart that I do not fairly see the place grannies of their 40s come into this, because the kids have been requested to attract an outdated individual, not their younger grandmothers.

As a chap who’s getting on a bit himself (I’m 70), I reckon they’ve an affordable level once they depict us oldies as considerably much less vigorous than we have been in our youthful days.

Certainly, I do know lots of people of my age and older who stay bodily match and mentally as sharp as ever.

I additionally agree it is a crying disgrace (and a surprising waste of expertise) that even skilled and extremely certified individuals of their 50s usually discover it onerous to get jobs, due to an ingrained prejudice in opposition to older staff.

But, let’s face it – and please do not cancel me for encouraging ageism – there are additionally an incredible many people who decelerate, each mentally and bodily, because the years roll by. I do know that I do.

The level was introduced residence to me forcefully on Wednesday evening, after I attended a massively satisfying reunion dinner at a London membership for a couple of dozen outdated mates who have been in my 12 months at our Cambridge faculty.

I discovered myself in immensely distinguished firm. Among us have been a Supreme Court decide, a former Cabinet minister who’s now a Peer, the retired headmaster of a well-known public college, a number one mild in wealth administration, the previous grasp of a City livery firm and one of many nation’s – nay, the world’s – most outstanding psychiatrists.

Not for the primary time, I felt a bit mediocre, and questioned if I may have spent my life extra profitably (I do not imply simply within the monetary sense) if I’d pursued another calling than wittering on within the newspapers about this and that, as I’ve accomplished for the previous half century.

I ought to say without delay that almost all of my outdated mates appeared to have weathered fairly properly since I first met them, once we have been all in our late teenagers.

For a begin, nothing very a lot had modified about their look. True, most have been greyer and thinner on high, with maybe the odd trace across the waistline of a life prosperously spent.

Some might have puffed and panted a bit after climbing the steps. But they remained wholly recognisable because the youngsters they have been in 1972.

Indeed, it was an incredible reduction to me to search out that I remembered their names and faces from all these years in the past (properly, all besides one, whom I had recognized like a brother on the college, however whose title had maddeningly escaped me till the guy sitting subsequent to me whispered a reminder; I felt such a idiot).

They additionally appeared to have retained their marbles – none extra so than the decide, who was as infuriatingly clever and charming at 70 as he was in his youth.

But there have been loads of methods wherein the results of the ageing course of made themselves felt.

For one factor – and right here, I used to be maybe the worst offender – one or two of us saved having to ask others to repeat themselves, as a result of we hadn’t fairly caught what they’d mentioned the primary time spherical.

I observed that at the least certainly one of our quantity was sporting a discreet listening to support, and I resolved that I actually should conquer my vainness and get one myself – significantly since current analysis has proven that having one fitted helps hold dementia at bay.

There have been additionally awkward silences as we scoured our reminiscence banks for the elusive title of a movie, a e-book or a public determine.

It was putting, too, that a lot of the dialog, aside from completely satisfied reminiscences of our youth and well-informed discussions of present occasions, involved our varied aches and pains, dodgy knees, dangerous backs and up to date well being scares – issues to which we did not give a passing thought 50 years in the past.

Indeed, all of us appeared very aware of our mortality – way more so than once we have been younger – and never least once we drank a toast to absent mates of our 12 months (absent, I’m unhappy to say, as a result of lifeless).

Even the opinions that many people expressed appeared to bear what I might describe as a crust of age.

To take one instance, there was hearty settlement amongst these sitting close to me after I complained that an e mail despatched by our outdated faculty final month had aggravated me intensely.

I am unable to think about, nevertheless, that it could have precipitated even the slightest irritation to anybody underneath the age of about 40. Indeed, my sons’ era would in all probability assume me off my rocker for caring.

Headed ‘Season’s Greetings from Corpus Christi College’, the e-mail that offended me mentioned: ‘On behalf of the Master, Fellows, college students and employees at Corpus Christi College, we want you a peaceable and joyous festive interval.’

Oh, for heaven’s sake! Corpus Christi is Latin for the physique of Christ. The faculty was based within the 14th century by the Cambridge guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Its coat of arms, reproduced on the e-mail, depicts lilies to symbolise the Virgin and the Pelican in Her Piety (pecking her breast to feed her younger together with her blood) to symbolize Christ’s sacrifice of His physique and blood for mankind.

So why the hell cannot the Master and Fellows deliver themselves to make use of the phrase ‘Christmas’? Do they truthfully imagine, of their mania for ‘inclusivity’, that anybody in any respect – of any religion or none – would have been offended by a reference to the season’s raison d’etre?

Just do not inform them what Corpus Christi means, or earlier than you recognize it they’re going to be altering the title of our hallowed establishment to one thing like Diversity College. But I mustn’t go giving them concepts.

On one different matter, most of the dozen on the dinner appeared to agree – once more, maybe, an indication of our age: there are far too many accusations of bigotry bandied about lately, with self-pitying individuals of all kinds wailing that they’re victims of an -ism or a -phobia. Well, I do not plan to hitch them.

Certainly, employers needs to be inspired to evaluate job candidates in accordance with their value, and never just by the variety of years they’ve been on this Earth.

And, sure, outdated individuals on this nation – far too usually deserted and uncared for in care properties – are seldom accorded something just like the respect and a spotlight they deserve.

Meanwhile, skilled comedians thoughtlessly ridicule individuals of their dad and mom’ and grandparents’ generations, for no higher motive than that they are outdated.

But let’s not fake that each one of us above a sure age is as quick-witted, hale and hearty as we have been within the halcyon days of our youth.

So this is a message to the four-year-olds of Britain: although I do not use a strolling stick — not but, anyway – you are most welcome to attract me carrying one, as an outdated crock quick nearing his sell-by date. You will not be far vast of the mark.

But because the years move, you may do properly to keep in mind one fact that appears to have eluded these of right this moment’s under-40s who specific contempt for my era.

There may come a time, and before you anticipate, while you discover yourselves on the receiving finish of the mockery and disrespect we now endure.

For someday you, too, might get outdated.