Ivy Kennard turned 100 this week. She’s a dear old soul, frail now, of course, and practically deaf, but still alert and enjoying life. She looks good for another 100; certainly she is fitter now than a year ago.We first met her and her family almost thirty years ago. She lived in London then, by herself too, her husband having died another thirty years before, but she came down to Wales regularly to visit her son and daughter-in-law and her three grandsons who were then growing up in the village where we lived. I used to take the middle son on Sunday mornings to the dry ski slope; he is now a bigwig with Microsoft, somewhere in deepest Asia, and goes proper skiing in the mountains of Japan. He made a point of thanking me for those early lessons long ago, which made me feel even warmer than Ivy’s birthday champagne.
She had her card from the Queen, of course. It featured a large head-and-shoulders of the monarch, looking rather cross, as though a minion had dragged her out of bed, dolled her up and made her pose. Though the mouth half-smiled, the eyes looked livid. Or so I thought, but then I have a vivid imagination.
What I do feel though, and here I am not being facetious, is that our dear monarch should wear her crown more. Not some great coronation object, but something like the tin circlet that kings wore over their helmets during the Wars of the Roses. Made of brass probably. At least you could see who was boss.
Now that her hair is almost white and her bearing sadly no longer regal, I feel the Queen needs the visible trappings of monarchy to reinforce who she is. And so a crown, and possibly a sash too and one of those gold and silver starbursts that monarchs and high admirals used to wear could be both handy and useful. Does it matter if she looks Ruritanian? That’s what monarchy is all about if you ask me: trappings. I like my kings in epaulettes. The satirists have taken all the fun out of life. Ivy thought so too in between sips of orange juice.
More seriously, were I Queen I should issue an edict, on pain of the crime of lèse-majesté, to the effect that only I could send cards to centenarians. For poor old Queenie (as my French neighbour calls her) had to jostle on Ivy’s mantelpiece with cards from Carwyn Jones (First Minister of the Welsh Assembly Government) and Ian Duncan Smith (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions).
Now the Queen may genuinely rejoice that one of her subjects has reached her three score and forty - and so too may Carwyn Jones. But IDS must surely be rueing the fact that people are living so long and that his department has been saddled with paying at least fifteen more years old age pension than his actuaries had allowed for; and not only that but with an unlimited liability in respect of the years to come. Maybe his card should be tested for hidden poison!
Still 100 years is a very great age. We were going into lunch when I said to Glenys who happened to be next to me and who is about my age or younger: “Ah well, Glenys, in another thirty years we shall be getting our cards from the Queen and eating our centenarian cake.” But instead of agreeing, she looked at me quite shocked.
I wondered for a moment if she had been diagnosed with some horrible illness and was about to drop dead, but no, what she said was: “I’m not that old!” She said it quite coldly, too.
And then I made the mental calculation: yes, 100 less mid-sixties is a bit more than 30. “Do I look like I’m seventy?” she added in an accusing tone.
Oh dear! I had obviously fallen into a deep pit of my own making, made worse by the fact that she had taken care to look smart and elegant for Ivy’s birthday bash.
What had happened was that I hadn’t calculated at all; I had just taken a chunk of time - 30 years - and assumed that it would be sufficient to carry us all long past our sell-by dates. Try guessing how far Penzance is from Bristol; now add a bit for good measure and you will still probably have underestimated how long England’s south-west peninsula really is. I guessed that’s all.
But I’m not sure Glenys believed me. I tried another tack. Pinned up on the wall, picked out in silver letters, was the word ‘CONGRATULATIONS.’ How many letters, Glenys, I asked quickly, are there in the word ‘Congratulations.’ A quick guess. ’11’ she answered. I was saved.
