What falling over at seventy taught me about scars, consequences and the dangers of rushing ahead.
In those heady days of childhood, back in the 1950s, I was like most kids.
I ricocheted from one scraped knee to another.
A fall off my bike, a chipped tooth, a broken arm or a head wound from a low-flying rock hurled by a neighbourhood adversary were all part of everyday life. I wore my scars with pride and valiantly returned to school the next day, limping slightly and sighing dramatically as I recounted the tale of how I had been so afflicted.
There was, of course, a little embellishment.
For the sake of drama - and a greater outpouring of sympathy and awe - things were ever so slightly exaggerated.
Now? No, not at all...
Back then things were different. The hill I had sped down on my bicycle became steeper and considerably longer. The speed at which I had been travelling increased with every telling. The clumsy misstep on the pedals became a catastrophic mechanical failure, and the reality of chipping my tooth on the handlebars somehow transformed into a scene from a Bollywood action movie.
I was, naturally, the stunt coordinator. Playing silly buggers in a tree and falling out of it was also a rite of passage. Every tumble taught me something. I learned to climb trees with greater care. I learned to ride a bicycle with more caution. I learned, occasionally, to look where I was going.
And then, having learned all these valuable lessons, I promptly fell out, fell off or fell down again. It was part of being a kid. We were remarkably resilient little creatures.
A bruise healed. A graze scabbed over. A broken arm was put in plaster and proudly displayed to anyone who might be remotely interested. Then we got on with it.
As I have aged, however, my relationship with injury has changed.
Fear of being hurt has increased because I know now that recovery takes longer. There is no particular pride in being wounded anymore. No embellishment. If anything, I tend to downplay my injuries for fear of being judged as a clumsy oldie with “health issues”.
I have become rather like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
“’Tis but a scratch.”
Except that these days, while I may insist it is only a scratch, I am privately agonising over the pain and wondering how long it is going to interfere with the ordinary business of living. I no longer bounce back like I once did. That is one of the less welcome discoveries of growing older.
The realisation that I am not ten feet tall and bulletproof weighs rather heavily on the mind. Long gone are the halcyon days when I could fly. Long gone are the days when a tumble meant a bruise, a grazed knee and perhaps a spectacular story to tell at school the following morning. And long gone are the days when I could be up and about almost immediately, displaying my scar as evidence of another adventure.
Now, an injury can mean weeks.. or even months ... before I truly function normally again.
Age may have given me greater wisdom in my thinking, but it has also taught me that when I make an error of judgement physically, I must accept the consequences with rather more solemnity than I once did. Some years ago, I took a tumble. And suddenly the most mundane things became difficult.
Making a cup of tea. Going to the toilet. Having a shower. Making a meal. Things I had never thought twice about became things to be approached with caution. Life had become a slow passage of time while I allowed the healing process to do its job. And that is perhaps the hardest part.
As many of us know. My images are drawn from my thoughts about some of our male posters here, so apologies if I got your undies wrong...
Patience.
I know I have to be patient. I know that time heals wounds. I know that there is absolutely nothing I can do to hurry the process along. Knowing that does not make it any less bloody annoying. I find myself thinking about all those pieces of advice we were given as children.
Tread carefully. Walk slowly. Look where you are going. Think before you act.
And increasingly, one thought keeps running through my mind:
If only I had been more careful.
Perhaps that is what getting older really teaches us.
Not that we become afraid of life, but that we finally understand the consequences of being careless with it. When I was ten, I could hurt myself and discover afterwards that I had made a poor decision. Usually, the consequences were temporary. At seventy, the calculation is different. A moment's carelessness can cost weeks of mobility. A moment's inattention can have consequences that cannot simply be shrugged off.
And that brings me to something rather larger than my unfortunate encounter with a wet bathroom floor years ago.
Perhaps our governments and so-called leaders could learn the same lesson.
There is nothing inherently wrong with moving forward. There is nothing wrong with ambition, innovation or trying to make things better. But when decisions affect millions of people, perhaps there should occasionally be a pause.
A moment to stop. A moment to look where we are going. A moment to ask the most unfashionable question of all:
What happens if we get this wrong?
We have seen governments impose extraordinary measures during the pandemic. Vaccine mandates cost some people their jobs and livelihoods. We have watched enormous economic and social changes pursued with great confidence, including the rush towards net-zero emissions.
When the consequences are enormous, uncertainty should encourage caution rather than arrogance. A child can throw himself down a hill on a bicycle and discover afterwards that he has made a stupid mistake.
The bicycle can be repaired. The tooth can be fixed. The grazed knee will eventually heal.
Governments don't have quite the same luxury.
When they make mistakes affecting entire populations, the consequences may not be a grazed knee. They may be broken economies.
Lost livelihoods. Energy shortages. Social division. Lives disrupted.
And some injuries don't heal easily. Some don't heal at all.
I have learned that being brave and being reckless are not the same thing.
There was a time when I thought being brave meant getting back on the bicycle after falling off it. Perhaps real wisdom is knowing when to slow down before you fall. So, if I could offer our leaders the benefit of my considerable experience in falling over, I would keep it very simple.
Tread carefully. Walk slowly. Look where you are going.
And, for heaven's sake, think before you act.
Because sometimes the consequences of getting it wrong are nothing more than a good story and a scar. And sometimes they leave you unable to walk.
I rather suspect we should be careful.
Because I think we are all going to come a cropper.
And it won't be pretty.
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