The fires on Rhodes and Corfu continue to make headlines with horrifying images on television news. Fire is terrifying. It must be dreadful for those involved, locals and tourists. The Greek economy with tourism a major part of it is bound to be adversely affected. From the news it would be easy to imagine the whole of the Island of Rhodes is being evacuated. It is not. The destruction and devastation is serious. No injuries have been reported.

In one report today online I read:

‘Wildfires continued to burn across Greece on Monday, with the islands of Rhodes and Corfu – both popular tourist spots – worst affected.’

The report continues with stories of ’panic’ and ’hysteria’.  The stories of individual tourists and what is happening to them make frightening reading.

I have friends holidaying in Corfu. This morning I sent a WhatsApp message wondering if they were ok. I had this reply,

“We’re fine thank you. In the thirty years we’ve been coming to Corfu there have always been wildfires some very close indeed to us. The fire services and the locals put them out. These ones aren’t close and they worked through the night on them and apparently have almost done so. The panic was caused by a new municipal disaster policy which was implemented for the first time yesterday. Everyone got alerts their phones. Caused panic among the first time tourists. Locals bemused.”

Near the end of the long online report I read: 

‘The UK Government is not advising people against travelling to Rhodes, despite the fires.

Mr Mitchell (a Foreign Office minister) said: “It’s important to remember that only 10 per cent of the island is affected by these fires. And therefore it is the tourist companies and the holiday experts who are best placed to give guidance on whether or not a family or individuals’ holidays are going to be ruined by these events.

“What we’re telling people to do is to keep in touch with their tourist company, and that is the right advice.”

Can we rely on clear factual news from the television news and print media?

We ‘did’ Shakespeare’s, ‘All the world’s a stage,’ speech from Act 2 of ‘As You Like It’ when I was at school and it must have registered as I still remember much of it, not least:

‘Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’

I still have all of my own teeth, some of them bought at a price from a wonderful dentist, and as for the rest I’m not doing too badly. I have however been thinking lately about purpose and in particular the purpose of old age.

The purpose of Alzheimer’s or its equivalents is different and is about community. I’m thinking about my purpose ‘compos mentis’ now.

A good friend quoted Powell to me the other day, “Old age is like being increasingly penalised for a crime which you never committed.” That is fine except that some of the negatives of old age are clearly caused by our own behaviour and habits earlier on in life. And many of society’s ills are clearly caused by our collective past practices.

When my mother was in her nineties she quoted, “Old age is not for sissies.” And she, always positive throughout her life, added, “It sometimes takes until eleven in the morning for me to feel positive about the day ahead.”

There is of course a fundamental question as to whether there needs to be any purpose in life at all. I believe there is. It has something to do with living life to the full.

So far in my thinking I’ve managed to divide life into three sections each with a different emphasis. It’s not a matter of ’either or’, or, ’all or nothing’. It is primary emphases. 

The emphasis of the first stage of life seems to me to be on the body and the whole business of growing up physically. Of course we are integrated beings and everything is involved but I’m thinking chiefly or primarily.

 Then I think the emphasis shifts to that of the mind and using the mind. That’s the second stage or phase. This is middle age.

In the third stage, old age, the emphasis (and this is the stage I’m interested in especially because I’m in it,) is the spirit. Is this the age of the spirit? Or, as a friend put it at lunch the other day, of reflection. Could this be the mood of the third stage?

We’ve rather lost it in the West but in the past here and in other cultures old age is the age of experience and wisdom to be respected and learned from. This, I think, is the age of the spirit – the age of the deeper realities, the spiritual realities.

If this is the case it’s doesn’t really matter if others want to learn from their elders or not. If ‘they’ don’t want or value us does it matter? That may be their loss not ours. What is important surely is that I, at this stage, live life fully.

The worship of youth is the fault of my generation not theirs. In the same way, ‘He (or she) is so spoilt,’ when said in condemnatory tones about a child is surely the fault of the spoiler not the spoilt. 

The Fifth Commandment: ‘Honour thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,’ has long since disappeared from the knowledge of the nation. Somewhere from the sixties or seventies we began to idolise our children and another commandment went down the drain with that.

But none of this need prevent those of us who are older giving full value and purpose to the time of life we have now. I think my time may be about reflection, understanding (or trying to) and learning. And all of that seems to me quite interesting and not in the least like punishment. 

Tennis was the only sport I really enjoyed and I remember as a boy playing each summer in the Peel Forest Tennis Tournament. Peel Forest was our local village. My performance was adequate unlike that of my elder brother who was very competitive and very good indeed. 

My mother had played for her school and was Captain of Tennis. I remember old school photos of her in the Woodford House Tennis Team. She was also Captain of Hockey.  I did not inherit the sporting gene.

In the 1980’s when I was working in a parish in Kensington I used to be given tickets to the Centre Court at Wimbledon including for the men’s final. Sorry, ‘Gentlemen’s Singles’, it’s Wimbledon and there words as well as manners are important. An elderly parishioner had, I think, inherited tickets for Centre Court seats and she, being elderly and no longer wanting to go to Wimbledon herself would give some to me.

This year, being elderly myself, I’ve been watching Wimbledon on the television. It’s wonderful. Not the same as being there but still wonderful and without the hassle of getting there and getting home again. A Thai friend has been staying, himself a very capable tennis player until his knee gave way, and he has been asking awkward questions.

“Why ‘love’?” and, “Why fifteen, thirty, forty?” Deuce makes a degree of sense but there was not much sense in the rest even after a little research. I did enjoy Google’s conclusion for ‘love’. It was something to the effect that even if you lose, ‘love’, you continue to play ‘for love of the game’.

At Wimbledon we see the best, the world’s tennis playing elite. At Lord’s there’s the Ashes with the elite of cricket from Australia and England playing there. I’m not watching that. I hated cricket at school. It was compulsory.

What puzzles me is that while these elites are to be celebrated, to be elitist is not. To be ‘Elitist’ is placed alongside being ‘Racist’ and ‘Sexist’. 

From the Oxford Dictionary. Elite:  a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.

To be the best seems very good to me even if I’m not.

From Roget’s Thesauras Synonyms for Elitist: highbrow, name-dropper, pompous person, stuffed shirt, stiff, pompous ass, social climber.

I understand that ‘Elitism’, another negative word, only came into being in the 1950s.

Changing words and changing meanings, it can be difficult to keep up, but more of that another time.

I knew Patrick as an adult. He was the uncle of school friends of mine. When Patrick was a boy he wanted to be a clock. Much of the time he went, ‘Tick, Tock,’ and, I understand, would sometimes chime the hours.

One day after nearly two years of being a clock Patrick said to his Grandmother, “Granny, I think I’ve wound down. Would you please wind me up again?”

To which his Grandmother replied, “No Patrick I don’t believe I will.” And Patrick never ticked again.

From Joyce Grenfell’s Nursery School Storytime:

‘Come along everybody. Sidney come out from under the table and join in the fun. No, you’re not in a space rocket. You can’t wait for the count-down, you come out now. Don’t you want to help us tell our nice story, Sidney? Then say, No, thank you.’ And stop machine-gunning everybody, please. And Neville, stop being a train and sit down. All right then, get into the station and then sit down. George…. No!…’

I never wanted to be a clock, nor a train or to be in a space rocket. And I certainly did not want to be a farmer which many of my male contemporaries did want and, for better or worse, became, farmers.

I can’t remember ever wanting to be a priest. However some years ago I was talking to Cousin Mary here in London and said to her, “I suppose I must have been about eight when you first visited us in New Zealand.”

“Nonsense!” She said. Cousin Mary could be quite forthright. “You were six. I remember it quite clearly. You were playing in a sand pit. And you were not making sand castles you were making sand churches. I thought it most peculiar.”

And I ended up a priest. However it was not simply a matter of out of the sand pit and into a clerical collar. And it was more than twenty years later.

There was quite a lot of ‘winding up’ in between. Apart from other travels, work and wondering and some agonising and soul searching on my part there was also a good deal of that from the Bishop and various committees as well.  And there was Theological College for nearly three years.

Had the Bishop decided not to ‘wind me up’, had that childhood imagination or dream not been recognised as valid, my sand churches like the steam engine or the rocket would have been as playtime, nothing more, nothing less.

Perhaps we need to let them work through these notions without affirmation or condemnation permitting ourselves the occasional morsel of silent and ambivalent collusion.

At my first session in the Strength and Balance class last week I made several discoveries. One was that I am very deaf even with my hearing aids in and on. 

There were ten in the class which takes place in a large studio on the second floor of the Castle Centre. One long wall is all glass windows with a view of St Mary’s churchyard – now a small park. The opposite wall is all mirrors. In between is the studio. 

There were five chairs in a line in front, ten behind. We each stood behind our chairs our backs to the mirrors. Our instructor, Jeff, a young Yul Brynner look alike, shaved head, faced us with his back to the windows. I was in the back row to the left. He began the class and I couldn’t hear. I put my hand to my ear to help my hearing. Jeff noticed. A helpful friend, centre in the front row, offered to change places. We did. I was now centre front and could see and hear.

My second discovery was that I don’t like being in the front row. Now that I think about it I didn’t like it when I was at school. I now understand why people don’t like being in the front row in church. I felt very exposed, probably because I was. I was very aware that my friend, now back left, could observe every move I made. So could everyone else. Not that they were looking or particularly interested. Nevertheless I didn’t like the exposure.

We began with ‘warm up’ then ‘cardio’. There was a lot of marching on the spot arms moving in time. My arms didn’t seem to coordinate in time with my legs. I remembered cadets at boarding school on Fridays, ‘Right Dress’, and marching on the Quad. My arms and legs didn’t coordinate then either. Some things never change.

I did not enjoy this not least because I couldn’t see how I was doing in comparison with everyone else. I could only see Jeff who could do everything of course – he was the instructor. However I didn’t do too badly. When we moved on to exercises and were doing ‘squats’ Jeff said, “Well done, Simon.” 

I was pleased. I discovered then that the schoolboy in me still enjoys approval. I had hated gym at school and all these years later I was pleased that I was doing something right in the gym. Well, not in the gym exactly, in the studio on the second floor of the Castle Centre at a session for those older persons with strength and balance problems referred within the National Health Service.

And the next discovery was that there are still discoveries to be made.  I think that’s the great discovery.