The Sixth Age ... or is it the Seventh?

Among many treasured possessions on my bookshelves is a dull green volume that was given to me by a former girlfriend.  I say 'given to me by', but that implies that it was akin to a Christmas or birthday present; it would be more accurate to say 'begged by me from', for I rescued it from a collection of books that had belonged to her father-in-law and were at that moment on their way to landfill (this was long before recycling became a way of life).  This book is, I suggest, next after the Bible as one containing life's wisdom writ large.  It was here, to the complete works of Shakespeare, that I turned last evening to substantiate my theme for this blog.

"All the world's a stage, | And all the men and women merely players; | They have their exits and their entrances; | And one man in his time plays many parts, | His acts being seven ages."  So said Jaques in Act II, scene vii of As You Like It.  Particularly relevant to me at this time are the last two that the bard described in this speech, providing as it does such an accurate pen-picture of the phases of human life.  I see in myself aspects of both the sixth - 'spectacles on nose', manly voice turning again toward childish treble' - and seventh - 'second childishness', 'sans teeth' - of these ages.  I would suggest that gradually, over the last ten years and more, I've begun the transition from one to the other.

I found myself questioning this week why it is that, as we get older, we muse more and more about our earliest years.  I remember my father - at a younger age than I am now - remarking that he could remember much more clearly events of his childhood than things that happened only a year or two previously.  Shakespeare hasn't answered that question but, in some measure, this speech is reassuring for it tells me that this phenomenon is common to all mankind and not just a failing in me.  Many times when my cousin and I are chatting - as we were one afternoon this week, thanks to Zoom - our talk is of childhood and family members long dead.  'Do you remember when ...?'  'Who was it that said ...?' and so on.

Maybe we talk like that because, having been brought up rather as brother and sister, each of us is the only one to whom the other can talk knowingly about such things.  We have one or two friends from our primary school years with whom we are in contact intermittently, and perhaps a few more from the next ten years, but I don't think it's a great stretch of the truth to say that all the rest of our friends and contacts date from within the last thirty years or fewer.  This general human characteristic has been fostered by Facebook, with its many pages and groups for town memories of places where we grew up or that we knew quite intimately in the past.

Another aspect of this sixth/seventh age is the 'rose-tinted spectacles' through which we view certain technologies or ways of life of the past.  Through the advance of science or simply the progress of social development, these are no longer to be found 'in nature' as it were, and can only be seen now in picture books or museums, or in contrived preservations that, by their very nature, can be only a pale imitation of their former glory.  

It's now nearly twenty years since I paid my only ever visit to Burnham-on-Sea and walked around the town, passing with sadness a number of places of amusement that had closed down and endless boarding houses with barely hopeful 'Vacancies' signs in the windows.  I remembered with a wave of nostalgia holidays spent at Great Yarmouth year after year in my schooldays.

The format would be the same each year.  There would be a mad panic on the first day of our week to book up for all the shows, where pop stars and TV celebrities appeared live for the season.  And we had to go to see the circus, usually at a matinee.  Of course, we didn't realise then that this is one of only two permanent circus buildings still in use in the country, and certainly had no idea that the ring could be flooded for water shows ... only two other such facilities still exist in the world!  Our week would not be complete without a walk around the docks, another to each end of the seafront promenade and visits to acquaintances from former years.  And, of course, there were endless quantities (or so it seemed to me) of ice cream and fish-and-chips.  

Looking back from my own late middle age, I realise just how important that week was to my parents each year.  Right from the early days of autumn, it must have been something to look forward to, the goal that made all the drudgery of normal work worthwhile.  Just as marvellous, but taken for granted at the time, was the financial scheming and sacrifice that, on a mere labourer's wage, carved out sufficient to pay for the travel, our accommodation and all the entertainment and enjoyment for a whole week.

How very different life is these days.  A week away is as nothing; even Europe is an 'extra' for many people for whom Iceland, Cuba and Thailand are possible and regular trips to family who have emigrated to Canada, Australia or the USA can be managed by some.