I was fascinated to read about retired Chicagoan telephone operator Dorothy Hoffner, who died in her sleep a week after a record-breaking skydive. What’s the most impressive number in this story? The 31,500 feet Hoffner dove from, or the fact that she was going to be 105 years old in December?
To me, it’s that this was her second skydive; she took her first when she was a sprightly 100 years old. The latest dive was reportedly spurred by her desire “to lead the jump, rather than be pushed out”. Old people are off the rails these days.
For evidence, look to the septuagenarian swimming team who were narrowly denied a Channel crossing record last year on a technicality – and staged a coup to oust several members of the record’s governing body as a result. (The team made the record undisputedly theirs last week.) Michael Caine’s new film, The Great Escaper, tells the real life story of an 89-year-old who busted out of his retirement home to attend the D-day commemoration celebrations. I sense growing rebellion in our older ranks.
And why not? Who says our autumn years should be benign and mellow, rather than full of piss and vinegar? It makes no sense to imagine all old people pass some threshold where all they care about is Antiques Roadshow and birdwatching. There’s a care home near me that has just installed an insane sound system. I’m convinced they’ve nicked it from a carnival. The other day they were blasting Billie Jean at a socially unacceptable volume. Annoying as hell, but I liked it. It’s easy to be patronising on this topic. Just now, I had to stop myself writing “I hope I’m like Dorothy Hoffner when I’m old.” The fact is I’ll never be like Hoffner, because I’m not like her now. I’d never go skydiving, because I don’t need to. I know how it would go. My retinas would detach instantly, and I would crash into the ground on my head like a blind omelette. Don’t tell me it’s statistically unlikely. It’s statistically unlikely to live to 100, even without the diving out of planes bit. People defy odds every day.
My mother is cut from different cloth. She is one of those inspiring older people you read about. She never retired, and at 80 still crosses London every day. She takes Laban dance classes and is rehearsing an urban opera. On her birthday in May, she took me to one side. I hoped, to pass on a piece of wisdom, or disclose some family wealth. “I want to go skydiving,” she said. What is it with this current crop of octagenarian Icari? Over my dead body, I told her.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Hoffner had no children, and never married. Her choices make her strangely modern. The rolling economic disaster of this century has swept away traditional markers of adulthood. There are fewer marriages and families, while jobs for life and home ownership are fantasies. The extended adolescence of younger people is sneered at, but it comes with a certain engagement with authenticity. Denied material security and stability, they turn to questions of how they want to live instead.
I wonder if this redrawing of norms ripples outward, rather than just down. Or maybe it simply takes a long time to slough off other people’s expectations. I was moved to read an interview with Henry Winkler, whose Happy Days character, the Fonz, was an avatar of youthful insouciance. Winkler spent decades struggling to find work after that show, before finding acclaim with recent work on Arrested Development and Barry. Winkler started therapy at the age of 70, he revealed, to rediscover the confidence that had been bullied out of him as a child. “At 77, I’m becoming who I am.”
I suspect we want older people to be staid or predictable, because that makes them a more manageable population. Sadly, a lot of the older people I know are astonishingly blunt, hilarious, irascible, rebellious and horny. Dignity resides in having all of our energy and personality seen and valued. If ageing no longer means what it once did, that’s a fantastic thing.
There’s no defying our mortality. But the lesson of Hoffner and company is that while we’re here, we should do what makes us feel alive – be it aerial daredevilry, prison breaks, or bloodless aquatic coups. Or maybe it’s Sunday evenings with Fiona Bruce, slightly chilled Pinot and contentment. Whatever gives our days meaning, so that when our time approaches, we’re leading the jump, rather than being pushed out.
I’m trying to learn lessons from my mother, too. It’s never too late to start. Life remains indefinitely open, and you have no idea where and when your passions might take you. I find the world terrifying, but that’s no reason to imprison her in the cage of my timorousness. At a certain age, you have to let them make their own mistakes. So fine. If she wants to skydive, well, I won’t stand in her way.
• Rhik Samadder is an actor and Observer columnist
