Age is a number, which can be used as an advantage to get things done, or an excuse not to get things done.
My father was a World War II veteran who attended Armistice Day parades every 11 November. Also known as Poppy Day, or Remembrance Day, this annual event commemorates the end of WW1 fighting at 11am on 11 November 1918. The City of Joburg commendably continues this tradition to honour those who died in WWI and subsequent conflicts. Before WWI, 11 November was already St Martin’s Day. My parents chose my first name because I was expected to arrive on that date.
With that background, I was moved to tears one wintry day in Edinburgh when first reading this well-worn Laurence Binyon quote on a monument: Last week, TimesLive ran an ill-informed “analysis” saying older politicians fall asleep on the job. And “more than 1 000 councillors above the retirement age of 60 [are] set to serve as … councillors across the country”. As if thereA friend cancelled his Times subscription, saying this ageism was the final straw. Sixty is not a universally recognised retirement age in the 21st century.
The average age of Nobel Prize winners is 62. The average age of Fortune 500 company chief executives is 63. For pastors and popes, average ages are higher. Obviously we slow down and eventually stop, but the idea that dotage necessarily begins at 60 or 70 is flawed, even if literature is replete with references to inevitable decline.
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