Manchester

Jenny and I have been in Manchester for a week. We had heard good things about the city so we thought we'd suss it out. We had high expectations but in the end it was disappointing.

We thought it had no individuality, no character, nothing to distinguish it. We could have been in any big city anywhere. Lots of people, lots of shops, lots of skyscrapers, and that was it.

The only things that stood out were the museums and art galleries, which had lots of interesting stuff in them. And the friendliness of everyone we spoke to.

Our first day wasn't too promising. It was pouring with rain in the morning and some of the tram stops were suspended. There was a bus replacement service but it didn't go anywhere near our destination, the Imperial War Museum, so we had to walk the rest of the way in steady rain. At least the rest of the week was dry and sunny.

On Wednesday we met some old friends of ours in Chester for a catch-up. which was most enjoyable. Chester actually has more character than Manchester, what with the river and the city walls.

One very noticeable thing about Manchester is the multiculturalism. There were masses of brown and black faces and (apparently) nobody seeing it as anything unusual. Quite a contrast with the rest of the UK where there's still a lot of violent racism.

But we won't be going back to Manchester. It was too anonymous, too functional. We'll stick to our old haunts in future.

Pushy parents

Well, Ms Scarlet Blue suggested I do a post about skirmishes, but I don't think I want to relive what at the time were very upsetting experi-ences. So I shall swerve away from that topic and try something else.

Like parental expectations. Parents who expect you to do (or not do) certain things with your life. Parents who want you to be just like them. Parents who expect huge achievements rather than modest unremarkable lives.

They expect you to have lots of children and grandchildren. Or take over the family business. Or be a high earner. When you want none of those things.

My parents were happy when I started work as a journalist, but a lot less happy when I abandoned journalism and became a bookseller. They thought I was wasting my abilities as well as not earning enough.

My mother was always disappointed that I never had children or grandchildren, but at least she didn't harp on about it. She was pleased when my sister had a daughter but I'm sure what she really wanted was a massive brood.

My father clearly thought I wasn't masculine enough - that I was far too sentimental and cared far too much about society's losers. He expected me to be tougher and harder and stop excusing other people's weaknesses.

Yes, there are parents who genuinely have no route-map for their children, and are happy with whatever lives they choose. But there are plenty who're less relaxed and want to push them this way or that.

I see what they're after. They want their kids to have fulfilling lives, they have their own idea of what will enable that, and they try to influence their kids accordingly. But their kids may have very different plans.

No, dad, I'm not a chip off the old block and I never wanted to be.

It gets worse

There have been some huge social changes in my lifetime, one being the lowering of expect-ations from one generation to the next. Things my generation took for granted and confidently anticipated are now impossible fantasies for many young people.

When I was young, it was readily assumed that as people got older they would buy their own home, have a permanent job working reasonable hours, earn generous salaries, have enjoyable and fulfilling jobs (as long as they had a good education), belong to a trade union that constantly improved their wages and working conditions, always be solvent (except for a mortgage), and get excellent medical treatment.

Boy, has all that changed, and changed radically. All those expectations have been blown to smithereens by various political and economic twists and turns.

What do today's young people expect? Unless they have wealthy parents, or parents with good connections, or a family business, or exceptional skills or talents, or a shedload of luck, then probably the following:

• Be unable to afford their own home
• Pay an extortionate rent or still live with their parents
• Have a temporary job or zero-hours contract working at any time of the day
• Have a miserable salary
• Have a boring and impossibly demanding job
• Not be in a trade union as they're no longer so powerful
• Never be solvent and face a lifetime of debt
• Have poor medical treatment because the NHS is hopelessly overloaded

When I was young, it was assumed that every future generation would have a better life than the one before. We never dreamt they would have a worse life, with new burdens and obstacles we knew nothing of. And we never dreamt they would be blaming the older generation for the deterioration.

I worry that after the present virus emergency is over, with probably the loss of thousands of jobs, the young will have even worse prospects. It doesn't bear thinking about.

Optimists wanted

It strikes me that you have to be very optimistic to be a parent. If you weren't optimistic you'd never take the plunge. You'd be too terrified of the dire twists of fate that might overtake your children. So you have to believe:

• That they'll grow up to be be healthy, happy and secure
• That they won't be caught up in World War Three
• That they'll always love you and won't turn against you
• That they won't become alcoholics, drug addicts or rapists
• That they won't fall off a cliff while taking a selfie
• That they'll find rewarding and satisfying jobs
• That they won't end up in prison
• That they'll be kind and generous to other people
• That they won't be as thick as two planks
• That they won't want to climb the North Face of the Eiger
• That they won't be right-wing extremists
• That they won't drive like maniacs

You also need to be a low-anxiety person. If you're the anxious type, you'll be worrying about your kids every minute of the day, wondering if they're safe, or behaving sensibly, or eating properly, or resisting that strange blue tablet their friend's just offered them. You'll be a permanent nervous wreck waiting for tragedy to strike.

Both my parents were pessimistic and anxiety-prone, which not only meant stressful parenting, but turned me into an equally anxious child. I'm sure they expected parenting to be a painful ordeal. And so inevitably that's what it was. While my sister was well-behaved, my constant teenage rebelliousness tested them to the limits. But I survived to tell the tale. And so does my mum - at 95 and counting.

Laid-back oldies

Author Lynne Reid Banks has concluded there are many advantages to being older. She has listed a whole lot of them:

• You don't care what people think of your opinions
• You can get away with eccentricities the young can't
• You can sleep in most days
• People will happily drive you around
• People don't expect so much of you
• You've no qualms about complaining vigorously
• You can get away with being lazy, self-indulgent or offensive
• You lose your sense of shame
• You no longer strive for self-improvement
• You no longer worry about the state of the world
• Your appearance doesn't matter any more

Well, I have to say I don't go along with any of them. I think she's being remarkably self-centred and arrogant. But she is 87, which is 17 years older than me, so maybe by that age she's entitled to be as self-centred as she likes.

I don't see myself the same way, though. I don't feel indifferent to other people's opinions. I don't feel I can do whatever I like because of my age. I don't feel it's okay to complain about everything. I don't feel like parading my eccentricities. I don't think people should expect less of me. And I don't see why I should give up trying to improve myself.

I don't see myself as some useless old dodderer who expects everyone else to bend over backwards to accommodate me. I have more self-respect than that. People should demand the same of me as they demand of younger people, and I should meet those expectations as far as I can. I find it acutely embarrassing when other oldies are berating some hapless shop assistant or insisting on some special treatment others wouldn't get.

It would be different if I was frail and infirm and incapable of looking after myself properly. But as I'm still fit and healthy that doesn't apply. So I don't see any reason to dump my social obligations and act like a helpless child.

I may be old but I'm not a basket case.

Pic: not Lynne Reid Banks!

Goodbye, dating

One great relief now I'm older is that I no longer face the fraught business of dating and starting a relation-ship. Thankfully all that's behind me and I'm well settled with my partner of 35 years. Unless disaster strikes and I find myself back in the dating game at the age of 80.

I can remember well all the embarrassments and uncertainties of going out with someone new and fretting over the necessary stages - chatting up, dating, kissing, mutual checking-out, then possibly the bedroom (or car or settee) and sex.

Am I doing this right? Am I going too fast? Am I putting her off? Am I frightening her? Am I looking hopelessly inept? What exactly is she up for? How do I tell?

Nobody ever gave me guidance on the dating thing. The boys at my single-sex school seemed to have little contact with girls and had nothing to say about it. My parents were also saying nothing, expecting me to work it all out for myself.

I was grateful when the woman took the initiative and suggested the next step. Some women virtually dragged me into bed, which made it very easy but rather intimidated me - with a predictable let-down under the sheets.

How thankful I was at the grand old age of 34 when I got it together with Jenny and the trials and traumas of dating were finally over.

Dating seems even more fraught these days. Expectations of possible partners are now so high you wonder how people ever fall for each other and can tick all the boxes. The wrong hairstyle or cut of jeans could be fatal.

But goodness, how exciting it was when a date was going well, and that deliriously smart and attractive woman actually seemed to like me. A lot.

Not quite married

Even though Jenny and I have been married for 15 years, we don't think of ourselves as married. We're still much more comfortable with the idea that we're cohabitees.

To me at any rate, the term marriage still implies all sorts of ugly expectations about roles and behaviour and duties which I don't go along with. The husband as breadwinner, the wife as housekeeper, obedience, submission, sex with the lights off, suburban sterility, you name it.

I know very well that all those stereotypes are out-of-date, and in theory marriages can be whatever you want them to be, but nevertheless just the thought of marriage gets all those preconceptions bubbling up and makes me feel instantly limited and put-upon.

Cohabitee on the other hand means nothing at all except living together. It doesn't imply anything about how you should behave, your lifestyle, the sort of home you live in, your domestic status. All it means is that you've chosen to live together, for whatever reason, because it's convenient or appealing.

It's entirely up to you how you live together. You're free to negotiate every little detail, from housework to sex, from organising to communicating, without any prior assumptions about what's traditional or appropriate. You can do whatever feels right for you, whatever comes naturally.

So whenever either of us accidentally mentions being married, or being a husband or wife, the other shudders and screeches and generally has conniptions. It's in bad taste, it's like farting at a dinner party or swearing in front of the vicar. It poisons the happy home.

The bit of paper's useful of course, financially and legally. But all the cultural baggage that goes with it - thanks but no thanks.