Page 7 - SENIORS ROCK MAGAZINE

Then the hormones kicked in and I became up and gone I can please myself entirely as to
a sucker for DH Lawrence and the fire in the what friendships and bonds I make and how I
blood. Emily Brontë's message was that tortured behave both in public and private. And that's
passion was better than gentle loving. All this what I do. Looking back now I can see that what
led to turbulent times and love and sex became a makes marriages endure is a mix of several
major pre-occupation. I read about it, fantasised, different things: a broad sharing of common
saw the movies Brief Encounter, Gone with the interests and outlooks; an agreement about how
Wind but didn't do much about it. you want your sex lives to be; and an ability to
weather the stormy seas of infidelity. I failed, in
All these years later I still carry traces of those the end, to sustain a proper combination of all
youthful ideas, though I don't brood on them three. Now I don't have to any more. Mrs Patrick
any more. I still believe that "Love is the sweetest Campbell spoke of the "hurly-burly of the chaise
thing" and "All you need is love". Life has longue... giving way to the deep deep peace of the
taught me that popular culture's clichs express marriage bed." I have gone further. I called my
profound human needs that do not change. autobiography The Centre of the Bed. I have it all
Love remains the most fundamental of human to myself.
emotions. When you're younger it's usually
about managing one-to-one relationships and There's no denying the body grows slack and
devotion to your children. As you get older it slow. The joints begin to creak, the back to
comes into play in a million different ways from grumble. But that has to do with ageing, not with
good manners and small kindnesses to shared loving. The loving stays young. Older people will
laughter and good company. As such it is central always tell you that inside they feel just as they
to my life. always did, and it's true. That's why it's a shock
to catch your reflection in the shop window, or to
The language has changed: it has got more raw, hear yourself referred to as an old boot. Among
more crude. "Making love" has given way to ourselves, the 70-year-olds are as lively and frisky
"bonking" and "shagging". There is no shame as ever we were.
in using the f-word and the c-word. Comedy
and humour have become coarser; jokes are Of course, the leaping flame of lust leaps less
eye-wateringly explicit. I don't protest at it often. Instead, I value the golden glow of long
happening. But it isn't part of my world, I don't friendships and attachments, the blossoming
use that sort of language and I can't help feeling of new. I look around and judge the happiest
that the all-prevailing irony has damaged of my friends to be those with long and stable
tenderness. I like people to say what they mean: marriages. But I also notice the growing
my children and grandchildren are the ones who popularity of a new arrangement among the old:
tell me most often that they love me. But there it's known as "together apart". Two they may be
are others. widowed or divorced discover a growing bond
between them. It develops and soon they are
The films have changed, too. Although we have holidaying together, sharing outings and even
had the romantic The English Patient and bed. But they remain living in their separate
Atonement we also have the explicit casual sex homes. It seems to work. It saves all the tensions
of Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs and Patrice of shared living, avoids the financial and social
Chreau's Intimacy. Again, I don't want such rearrangements of moving in together, and it
explicit films banned or censored but I can't say doesn't trespass on the past.
they move me. There can be a sense of "been
there, done that" in seeing young people having As I grow older I perceive love in a different
sex. But sometimes it's more a case of "it's too late context altogether. I have seen love at its most
now". Love and sex are not voyages of discovery intense and beautiful when someone is dying.
any more. I've long since arrived. And I'm more This may not fit the clichs of "sex and love" as
convinced than ever that whatever you do with we live it. But to witness one partner falling into
your limbs and your body matters less than what a decline and the other giving selfless devotion
goes on in your head and your heart. throughout the illness is to see love in action. It
seems an odd thing to say, but love gathers with
I came out of my second marriage some seven passion and intensity around many a deathbed.
years ago and have been living alone ever since.
It suits me. It has left me free to make immediate Source: https://www.independent.co.uk
choices for myself alone. With children grown

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senior’s rock magazine