Intolerance and getting older.

Intolerance.

I’m intolerant, There, I've said it. It’s getting worse and more noticeable as I've grown older too. Whereas in my youth I had a largely laissez faire attitude to life, I find myself becoming very judgmental and intolerant of people, fashions and institutions. Whereas in the past if a had shoddy service or goods from a shop I’d simply stop using them, I now find myself asking for the manager, insisting on my legal remedies, writing to their Head Office and firing off a snotty (yet polite) rant to the Daily Telegraph (it used to be the Daily Mail, but they have become far too right wing even for me). As an aside, isn't it funny how our taste in newspapers change too. I started off reading the Daily Mirror, primarily as my Dad used to bring it home with him from work. He’d drop his backpack by the front door as he wheeled his bike through the hall to the back garden and I’d make a bee-line to get the paper first. It would always be dog eared and well thumbed but opened up a wider world only glimpsed on John Cravens Newsround.. I used to read voraciously as a child, still do to this day. If I've nothing to read at breakfast I’ll even read the labels on sauce bottles or cereal packets. The newspaper always came in handy after everyone had finished reading it as a few sheets would be laid down on the floor for me to clean my shoes ready for school the next day. This was a ritual my dad drummed into me, perhaps a hangover from his war service. Every night before I went to bed I had to make sure my shoes were cleaned and polished. Even now, the smell of Cherry Blossom shoe polish evokes so many memories. Once I’d started work I was opened up to different papers. One of my first jobs at the bank was to lay the Flying Pink (the FT as it was then called) on the managers’ desk, ready for when he came in. The articles that I could understand (remember, my dad didn't have a bank account when I started working, keeping his money in separate metal Oxo tins with holes cut in the top. One for the rates, another for Gas, Electric etc. Every Friday he’d make sure money went into them to ensure the important bills got paid) opened up the arcane and mysterious world of finance.

I finally persuaded dad to open a bank account, as it was somewhat embarrassing for me in those days that he didn't have one which in turn meant he had no credit card and had to pay for everything in cash. On the long train journey into work everyday, on the District Line from Dagenham East to Bank, via Mile End and the Central Line, I’d seen that there was a clear division in who was reading what. The blue collar types read the Sun, Racing Post or Mirror, whilst those in cheap suits went for the Express or Mail. The more expensive suit wearers read the larger broad sheets such as the Times or Telegraph, which were far too big for people to read on the train unless you had mastered the black art of newspaper origami. This was the ability to fold these large newspapers in such a way as to not annoy the people sitting next to you and be able to change pages with just a few folds. Fascinating to watch. Being in a cheap suit myself I decided to ditch reading my dad’s Mirror and trade up to the Daily Mail. Maybe I’m looking at the paper with rose tinted memories but I’m sure in those days it was far more interesting and sensible then it is now and didn't try to wind its readers up everyday with obvious lies. There also seemed to be far more actual news then adverts too.

Ah, where was I? Oh yes, intolerance and firing off snooty letters. Was this a slow, gradual build up or was there a Damascene moment one day where I changed (like Clark Kent) from a mild mannered person to a grumpy old man? I really don’t know but suspect it has several antecedents. Firstly, I’m getting older and somewhere in my subconscious there’s a part of me saying hurry up you old fool, there’s not so much time left that you can afford to waste it listening to that drivel or nodding sagely at the bollocks being sold you by the half wit in Currys who couldn't find the On/Off button if he tried and who thinks that buying an extended warranty is a good deal. Secondly, it’s because I've seen and heard all the poor excuses that pass for service so many times before. They might work on a callow twenty something, but please, do I look wet behind the ears or fresh off the teat? I've boots older then most people. Thirdly, I think working at the Banks Head Office changed me quite a bit. I went from believing that people in charge knew what they were doing to realizing that for most of the time stuff was being made up as they went along. It’s a wonder large organisations don’t explode from all the hot air and gas that’s generated in all of the interminable meetings that go on. You know, on several occasions I attended meetings where I’m sure the sole reason of the meeting was to determine when the next one should be held! Blind leading the blind. Anyhow, just as people become allergic to bee stings or peanuts from too much exposure, I’m sure HO made me develop allergies to bullshit and idiots.

But is it a given that you become intolerant as you grow older? Is it hard coded into our DNA or simply down to learned behaviour and social mores? For example, I started off as an ardent Socialist, bemoaning the lot of the working man at the hands of exploitative big business and the class system. I then started work, saw how much tax was being taken each week from me (and for what exactly?), suffered the Winter of Discontent, power cuts and the three day week, before realising that maybe Socialism and rampant union activism wasn't such a wonderful idea after all. Is that a phase most people go through as the realities of life push out the naiveté of youth or was it just me?

Maybe intolerance is an instinctive or learned response, like Pavlov’s dog, to the massive social and technological changes going on around us. Did medieval older people (there must have been some. They didn't all die off young) get grumpier and complain about the younger serfs and how much better the floggings were back in their day? Were people more content in the past and only reacted to technological changes, for example the industrial revolution or the social unrest following the world wars?

For me it’s also manifesting itself in a readiness to face up to people that are rude or get in your face. As a young man I’d always be willing to back off from a taut situation, even when at the height of my physical prowess, such as it was. Now, despite my ageing bones, assorted health problems and bad eyesight, I’m more prepared then ever to have a go if I see something wrong happening. Why is that, shouldn't the evolutionary “smart” thing to do be to back away as you become less able?

Maybe its simply a last Hurrah against the inevitable as the lights start to dim and the fires that once burnt so brightly now start to flicker and die down.

I really don’t know