Author and poet Christopher Matthew talks of awkward moments, inevitable relationship quirks and the rousing possibility of late-flowering love in your sixties and seventies.
It all changed when Dustin Hoffman met Anne Bancroft's Mrs Robinson in The Graduate.
Since time immemorial, older men have been falling for younger women. Be they divorced, widowed or still married, the longing of the long in tooth to re-live the pleasures of their youth can be irresistible. For a few, the adage that young women go for older men is proved to be triumphantly true. Most dream on.
'It's Never Too Late to Fall in Love,' warbles the elderly Lord Brockhurst in Sandy Wilson's musical The Boy Friend. The object of his affection happens to be a flirty young woman named Dulcie. But love can strike anyone at any time – and at any age.
These days, an older woman is as likely to fall for a young chap as the other way around. I doubt I am alone among my fellow grey beards who, after seeing what happened when Dustin Hoffman met Anne Bancroft in The Graduate, started looking at our friends' mothers through fresh eyes.
Why an older woman can be as flirtatious as she wants with a younger man and no one thinks the worse of her is something of a mystery. The only reason I can think why older men should be denied the mild pleasures of admiring youth and beauty is not so much the fear of women’s disapproval as their indifference.
And however athletic the pair of them might be in the bedroom in the early stages, contentment and warm companionship become conditions increasingly to be cherished.
The story goes that veteran jazz musicians, Ronnie Scott and George Melly, were standing on the pavement outside Ronnie's club in Soho when they spotted two pretty girls coming towards them. As they passed, the men smiled at them in what they imagined to be a friendly way, only for the girls to ignore them totally and walk on by.
"I don't think they fancied us, Ron," said George.
"They never even saw us, George," said Ronnie.
But, of course, there is more to late-flowering love than sex. True, the 70-year-old widower who takes a shine to the 68-year-old widow next door may find that, having plucked his youthful chat-up lines from the sludge of memory, he can't remember what the next move is; but, generally speaking, most who embark on an old geezer's love affair are more than capable of taking awkward moments in their stride, and rising above them. And however athletic the pair of them might be in the bedroom in the early stages, contentment and warm companionship become conditions increasingly to be cherished.
Shared interests – at the book club, for example, or on cruise liners, or on the golf course – will always help keep the cogs of marriage nicely oiled, but few manage to last the course without one of them driving the other potty from time to time.
The grit in the oyster is usually some trivial and inexplicable quirk of behaviour: repeating long-winded anecdotes; or disappearing upstairs the moment the lunch is on the table; or (in the case of the husband)
insisting on wearing clothes that should long since have found their proper home in the local household waste recycling centre.
Let's face it, nothing helps to keep a marriage on an even keel better than the odd spot of brisk bickering.
Christopher's new book of poetry, A Bus Pass Named Desire, is published by Little, Brown and is available on Amazon
By Christopher Matthew
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