Over the hill... and far away
07/11/2006
A recent memo from South Gloucestershire’s personnel chief Paul Scrivener, sent to 10,000 members of the council’s staff warned that: "Even sending a birthday card that says colleagues are 'over the hill and past it' could be taken as ageist behaviour.”
According to a spokesman, the Council insists there is no general ban on sending cards… but was simply reminding employees of new legislation, which came into effect last month.
Obviously a sense of humour failure on a massive scale.
But, more worryingly, this could be mark the end of jokey birthday cards as we know them, for be rest assured that there are many far more PC organisations out there than South Gloucestershire. Someone was recently hauled before the courts for “revving his car in a racist manner” while two more faced a reprimand for biting the heads of black jelly babies with intent to offend. The PC brigade don’t need encouraging. They’re already running the asylum.
Go any further down that road and soon it could be an offence to wear a cardigan in a manner blatantly designed to mock an older person; or referring to a badly behaved senior as a “Saga-lout”.
I’m all for showing people respect, but it has all gone a bit bonkers. The fact is that the senders of many of these “over the hill” cards are people of the same age or older as you: there’s sweet delight to be had from sending a card reminding someone that a bus pass is on the way, to someone who has been sending YOU cards like that for the past 10 years.
From the age of 21 onwards, as far as I can see, people get mocked for getting older. Footballers are over the hill at 35. Models well before then. Swimmers almost as soon as they get out of waterwings.
But we shouldn’t be too sensitive about our perceived frailties unless we want to unleash something we can’t stop. What, for instance, happens when I next get a “happy birthday dad” card which has the traditional beer-gutted, balding man leering at a buxom lady in a miniskirt, and being threatened by the wife-figure wielding a rolling pin?
That presses almost every PC button: anti the folically-challenged, fattist and sexist, as well as portraying women as perpetrators of domestic violence. That lot would keep half of the lawyers in Britain going for a month.
The fact that the card didn’t include a prescribed ratio of disabled people and those from ethnic minorities would keep the other half going.
Stop joking about getting older, and people will start thinking about it as something serious. There’s a running club made up of people aged 50 and over who call themselves “The Coffin Dodgers” (after everyone’s favourite radio show). Their motto: better to be over the hill than under it. That’s the way to deal with the ageing process: poke it in the eye with a sharp stick.
To me, going past the 50 mark was a badge of honour. I didn’t mind the cards reminding me of my increasing decrepitude because they were all intended to gently mock rather than hurt and reminded me that – hell, I’ve got this far. In fact, I’d say that I was proud to be grey.
But what do YOU think?
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