The date of this issue of The Spectator is 4 January 2014, which also happens to be my 74th birthday. There is nothing very special about being 74 except that it is the last year in which one can be described as being in one’s ‘early seventies’; for it is the last year in which one is closer to 70 than to 80. You may wonder how I am at this pivotal moment in my life? Well, to be frank, not terrific. I get short of breath after climbing the stairs. I have to sit down to put on my socks, and I usually need to take a rest in the afternoon.
My chief problem is something disspiritingly described by doctors as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which means that I cough rather a lot and make a sound like a little organ pipe when I breathe in and out. This ailment is blamed on many decades of heavy smoking. Though I stopped smoking several years ago, this apparently didn’t help: the damage was already done. On top of that, I am told I have diabetes and take pills for it. At least, that’s what the doctor says I have, even though I am conscious of no symptoms connected with it, and tests usually show my blood sugar level to be quite normal. Sometimes I wonder if they’re not just trying to frighten me.
Anyway, ailing though I may be, I feel a picture of health, youth and vigour in comparison with my brother John, who is my closest neighbour in Northamptonshire, living in a house just next to mine. Firstly, he is 86, 12 years older than me. Secondly, he suffers not only from diabetes but also from Parkinson’s Disease and various other lesser ailments.
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