SEXAGENARIAN, AT LAST

A milestone in my life. Sixty years on this earth. Born way back on 5 August 1950 when the Austin A90 Atlantic was still on the drawing-board. One of the tennis players at the club, aged 22, when picked to play with me said, disgruntled - 'I'm playing with an old man.' I opened my presents after breakfast. Nothing could have given away my age more. From my Mother, a boxed set of DVDs represnting the dying years of steam locomotion in the late 1950s, though the final coup de grace would not be for another 9 years. From my wife, a pictorial history of the Beatles, starting off with their days backing Tony Sheridan in seedy Hamburg nightclubs. I was disappointed in that this book was written by an American, for an American market, so every time the author mentioned a price, he had to convert it into the dollar rate, so we had £3/$2.5 or whatever, a hundred times (the author was obsessed with the price of everything) which was irritating, as was the American spelling of 'centre', labour' and a hundred other words. Looking back, I suppose nothing much important has interested me since. I did receive a bottle of excellent eight-year-old malt whisky from my younger son, and when I tasted it, I recalled the blurb of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society - 'a taste like a mixture of molasses, honey, sycamore seeds, Steradent, Fishermen's Friends and Toilet Duck.' That lot do tend to get carried away. The Open University told me I had passed the first part of my Diploma in Creative Writing, but only a 'clean pass' when I was expecting something better. Still, it beat a 'dirty fail', I suppose. Only another year left to get the diploma, if I can stretch to the £680 it costs to sign on the dotted line in September. I rang my folks and thanked them for my gifts. "I can get anything exchanged", my Mother said anxiously, bless her. "That won't be necessary - I'm thrilled to bits with my presents". We went for a picinc in the ancient Jaguar, to Gifford. We parked next to the 17th century lime grove and ate shop-bought sandwiches. We tried to find some evidence of the old Gifford Station, but a new housing estate had been built on the site. One of the houses was up for sale at £400,000. That would just about bought the branch line to Gifford at the end of its economic use (in my lifetime!). A young couple were being shown round the outside of the house. I wondered where on earth they would get the money from to pay the mortgage and whether the banks released mortgage money these days, seeing as all they seem to want to do is charge exorbitant amounts to cash cheques, to hoard your money and give you no interest and to lend nothing to you, in return. I see they've all posted huge profits for the first half of this year. It's like the railway - the last thing in the world it wants is passengers - it plays havoc with the timetables. As we returned to the car, the heavens opened and we took shelter under a large horse-chestnut tree near a copse. The rain only lasted for a few minutes, so the damage was slight. I could do with some rain, because my back lawn resembles a slow turner at Peshawar. All in all, it wasn't a bad birthday, although I feel some pain knowing that I can apply for a free bus pass (unless Mr Salmond wants that means-tested these days) and that I am one day nearer to the grave.