The older we are, the kinder we get
As we get close to death, we see the point of life. By Mary Kenny
I was edgily nervous hosting a soirée recently in my native Dublin. My great fear was that arguments and quarrels would break out among a roomful of people who had very different opinions on all sorts of touchy subjects. There were strong republicans and covert monarchists, pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics, Catholics, Protestants and atheists, and I felt sure voices would be raised in verbal combat.
But no: all was sunny. People got along quite harmoniously, without anyone being dull or bland.
And this is part of my analysis: as we get older, we become nicer. We grow more tolerant. We allow for other people’s strong feelings about any number of issues. We understand that political or social attitudes aren’t just about the politics or the issues: they may be about some psychological experience or emotional attachment. As Bertrand Russell so wisely said about all arguments, ‘Everything is really about something else.’
We are nicer and kinder in our oldie years not just because of the perspective of time but also because, as we attend more funerals of our contemporaries, we realise we are all moving towards the departure lounge. And we don’t want to be remembered as crabby old cranks.
We are also nicer and kinder, I believe, because sexual dynamics are no longer to the fore. We are not, mostly, trying to capture some amour across a crowded room. We are not – mostly – competing with one another for some thrilling date, otherwise possibly known as making a bloody fool of oneself.
And there’s another aspect too, I suspect. The pandemic experience has deprived us of so much real social contact: Zoom and the webinar and the smartphone have reigned over our relationships. This has taught us to value meeting real people again, and real people are different from people encountered electronically. Not all my party guests were oldies, but I believe the benign attitudes of oldies prompts a warming intergenerational response.
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Speaking of monarchists, I politely disagree with those who disparagingly refer to the Nordic countries as having ‘bicycling monarchies’, as if this connotes a less significant institution. The Danes, for example, take their 1,000-year-old monarchy very seriously. Land crossings into Denmark alert travellers to the fact that ‘you are now entering the Kingdom of Denmark’, alongside pictures of Queen Margrethe – now Europe’s longest- reigning monarch.
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I’m always pleased to see the Monégasques included in major royal events, such as the historic funeral of Her Majesty. No doubt the royal families of Europe all know one another through the trade union of monarchies, but I like to think that an interview I did with the late Princess Grace in 1979 was an indication of why there was such a cordial bond with the Grimaldis.
Grace, formerly of course the exquisite movie star Grace Kelly, said that she found the Queen and her family wonderfully welcoming. ‘And so much less snobbish than the folks in Philadelphia.’ She never forgot that her father, an accomplished athlete and oarsman, had been excluded from Philly’s WASPy top society because he had worked with his hands in the building trade (and thereby made his fortune). No such snootiness prevailed, it seemed, among the Windsors!
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The Queen was, as we know, a deeply Christian woman who exercised the virtue of forgiveness. She demonstrated that when she extended the hand of peace and reconciliation to Martin McGuinness, the IRA leader who had almost certainly played a key role in
the assassination of Lord Mountbatten. (Prince Philip, I observed, declined the handshake.)
But Elizabeth II’s Christian clemency was accompanied by a quick and meaningful sense of humour. When McGuinness asked Her Majesty, ‘How are you, Ma’am?’ she swiftly made clear that she knew she might have once been a target for his gunmen. She responded, ‘Still alive!’
Indeed, she outlived him.
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In one of Liz Truss’s first interviews as Prime Minister, she gave assurances that she had a very happy relationship with Larry the cat, the permanent feline resident at 10 Downing Street.
Thus, when the Irish Taoiseach, Michéal Martin, visited the Prime Minister in September with the purpose of improving the post-Brexit situation, he bent down to stroke Larry. Alas, he was rather peremptorily rebuffed. Larry strode away decisively.
A correspondent to the Irish Times, Frank Byrne, subsequently explained that there is a skill in caressing a cat. ‘It is totally inappropriate to swoop down from above. This is perceived as a threat.’ The correct approach is to get down on your hunkers to the same level as the pet, and then ‘offer your hand gently’.
Puss will then ‘decide on how things will proceed’. In my experience, it is always the moggie who calls the shots on whether favour is shown.
