Around 20 years ago in Dublin, I was chatting to the eminent Irish psychiatrist Dr Anthony Clare – the one we remember from In the Psychiatrist’s Chair on Radio 4.
I was asking Anthony about an old friend of mine who, when I had first known him, had had difficulty with the truth. He simply couldn’t tell it. In his twenties and thirties he had been a habitual liar, even when he had no need to be.
I said to Dr Clare that, now my friend was older, I thought he had changed.
‘I hope so,’ said the psychiatrist gently, ‘for his sake and for yours, but don’t rely on it. People can and do change with time, but as a rule they don’t.’
I thought about my conversation with Dr Clare the other day when I heard the news of the death of the great Irish novelist Edna O’Brien. I first met her in the 1960s when she was in her early thirties and I was a schoolboy. I was tasked with escorting her around my boarding school (Bedales in Hampshire) because she was thinking of sending her son, Carlo, to the school.
I was honoured and excited to meet her, of course, though I am ashamed to say I noted in my teenage diary at the time, ‘She is so Irish, so gentle and fey and pixie-like that you do want to give her a good kick up the backside.’
According to my diary, when I told her that The Lonely Girl was the bestselling novel at the school’s paperback bookshop, she simply closed her eyes and stroked my hand. I remember taking her into one of the boys’ dormitories where, on the far side of the room, standing by his bed was a boy of about 14.
He was stark-naked, except for a strategically placed guitar.
Instead of sparing the poor chap’s blushes and retreating, Miss O’Brien stood transfixed. ‘Is there a more beautiful sight on God’s earth than that,’ she murmured; ‘a pure, hairless boy, with soft brown skin, on the very edge of manhood…’
The reason Anthony Clare came to mind when she died was simply that the last time I saw Edna O’Brien was on Valentine’s Day this year.
She was 93 and very frail, and when she saw me, she closed her eyes and stroked my hand – exactly (but exactly) as she had done 60 years before.
‘Oh, you beautiful man,’ she murmured.
She was so Irish. And brilliant, beautiful and funny. She didn’t change.
I thought of Anthony Clare again when I popped over to Paris in early August for a happy 48 hours at the Paris Olympics.
I am glad I went. The French police (who seemed to be on every street corner) had been instructed to be friendly to us foreigners and – sacre bleu! – they truly were.
Everyone was friendly. Everything was well-organised. Everyone was happy. Even the competitors who came away without medals were merry. Even the spectators who got drenched in the rain were in high spirits. Why?
Because, in the case of the competitors (according to Dr Clare), being tested in life – being challenged – is a key element in finding happiness.
He told me, ‘You very rarely find people who are sitting around not doing very much who are happy.’
As for the spectators, they were happy not simply because they were seeing athletes at the top of their game, but because most of them were there because they have a passion for sport.
To be truly happy, you need to cultivate a passion – something (usually outside your work) that excites, absorbs and delights you.
Whether it was archery, Taekwondo, hockey or handball, in Paris I met people for whom their chosen sport was their everything.
What's your everything?
I have a passion for words and language and I love the way language keeps evolving.
‘Spilling the tea’ (meaning sharing the goss), I can tell you I’ve had a ‘hot girl summer’ (it’s a unisex expression for feeling confident and carefree).
Nothing ‘ick’ (distasteful) or ‘mid’ (average) has come my way since I began chatting to Alexa (the machine that sits on top of the fridge in my kitchen) and asking her to share with me her favourite Gen Z words and phrases.
‘Rizz’ (meaning charisma) and ‘to slay’ (meaning to perform well) I already knew, but what about ‘the math is mathing’? That’s how you describe something that’s incorrect and doesn’t add up.
At the Olympics, by the way, I met a lady from Bhutan.
She told me that Bhutan is the only country in the world where women are allowed to have more than one husband.
Can that be true? Since I heard it, I haven’t been able to think of much else.
In fact, as the latest lingo has it, it’s a fascinating fact that now ‘lives rent-free in my head’.
Gyles Brandreth is author of The 7 Secrets of Happiness
The Oldie September 2024
