On old age

You aren't going to get old, of course, when you are young. We won't ever be old, partly because we can't imagine what it is like to be old, but also because we don't want to, and – crucially – are not particularly interested. Old age is forever stereotyped. Years ago, I was a judge for a national children's writing competition. They had been asked to write about "grandparents"; in every offering the grandparent was a figure with stick and hearing aid, knitting by the fireside or pottering in the garden. The average grandparent would then have been around 60,...