Leave Biden alone – at his age I was working full-time, swimming three times a week and had five girlfriends
As the pressure grows on Biden to step down from the presidential race, Hunter Davies, aged 88, says there may be good reasons for him to pass the torch, but it shouldn’t be his age alone
I do feel sorry for poor old Joe. His Covid sounds pretty serious. I had it too, or so I was told after surgery. But I never knew for sure, I felt nothing. No illness at all. So, lucky me, but getting to 80 and beyond is a matter of luck, as we all know.
I don’t understand all this fuss about Joe Biden’s age. Just because he is 81 and three-quarters, it doesn’t mean that he’s necessarily unfit for office. Unfit for running up Helvellyn perhaps, or swimming the Channel, or swinging from the chandeliers in the bedroom maybe, but, as he said in a recent interview, unless he is diagnosed with a “medical condition” by a doctor, he sees himself as perfectly capable of running for president.
And why not, if he can take important decisions, hold meetings and stand on platforms for hours making speeches? I am sure he can still do joined-up writing and sign his name too.
I am 88 and when I was his age, I was still working full-time, as I am now. Oh yes, and swimming three times a week and walking three miles on the Heath every day. At 82, I also had five girlfriends. Honest. In one week, I took each to lunch at my local Bistro. You should have seen the eye-rolling from the waitresses.
My wife, the writer Margaret Forster, died eight years ago after 55 years of marriage, and for a year I was so busy with probate, selling our much-loved Lakeland home, and mourning, that I didn’t have time to think about having a lady friend.
Then one of my daughters, as a Christmas present, bought me a subscription to Saga dating. I could not quite work out how to do it at first. My fingers are stiff and I find the internet a nightmare. I am sure Joe has the same problem, although he has a large staff to twiddle the knobs. Then I got going and, bingo, the women were queueing up! Blokes in old age have better luck than women in old age. There are so many of them.
I now have a young lady friend, a babe of 78, whom I met at a book event, not a dating site. She is called Miranda. For the first two months, I kept calling her Matilda. But it helped her get a title for her first book, which has just come out, My Name Is Not Matilda (hurry, hurry to Amazon). I agree this is not as appalling and dangerous as calling Volodymyr Zelensky “President Putin”, but in human and romantic terms, my God, I have not been allowed to forget it.
Joe looks good to me. A fine head of hair. More than me. He is fit and not overweight. Apparently, he does weights and has a trainer. That’s a bit pathetic. I do five minutes of my own made-up exercises each morning – stretching and then press-ups. I try not to look in the mirror. In my head, I am still 58.
He doesn’t smoke, nor do I, and does not drink. What a wimp. He is missing one of the many pleasures of old age. I try to limit myself to a bottle a day. My theory is that white wine is not alcoholic and I’m sticking to it.
Like him, and all of us in our 80s, I lose things. I’m often left wondering why I am standing with the fridge door open and I lose my train of thought, but, come on, I was like that when I was young. When I get lost mid-sentence and forget what I was going to say, I now just laugh and tell myself that I was just the same at 21. No biggie.
I always have an afternoon rest and hope Joe does too. He has a lovely-looking wife in Jill, lucky him, someone to cuddle and care for him. Sex in your 80s still happens, whatever you think. It is one of today’s taboo topics, which the young don’t want to hear about, which is weird because usually they are all for breaking taboos. Obviously it is not quite the same as when you were young, but cuddling is still wonderful. Outercourse, I say, can be as enjoyable as intercourse.
Like most oldies, I enjoy the company of my children and grandchildren, and get much pleasure from either spoiling or bossing them around; that is my chair, I’m talking, do you know how old I am, yes I will have another glass of sauvignon blanc and what kept you?
Obviously, you need your health. I am sure Joe has got arthritis, the same as me, but modern medications have controlled this. I take five pills a day, having had a triple heart bypass, a new knee and various other things I have forgotten. Or have chosen to forget. I like to wipe anything nasty from my mind and I never moan about my health with anyone younger. They think hmm, what do you expect at your age?
Yes, I do stumble and fall over. Just as Joe has done. He has a rather stiff gait, whereas I stagger as if I have been drinking, which I deny (how very dare you!)
The thing about age, if you are lucky enough to be relatively well in your 80s, is that it is better than the alternative. I tell younger folks that I was young once. They have not yet been old. Though I hope they get there, today I am the winner. Yah boo!
Keep it up, Joe. As long as you have your marbles, and keep taking the medication, with the wind behind you, and your lovely wife by your side and a good staff to answer your emails, you’re good. Oh and try to have an afternoon kip, under the blankets for at least 40 minutes.
Serious illness aside, I don’t see why you can't manage another four years. You can't do worse than some of your predecessors, such as the one who came before you…
Hunter’s next book, ‘Letters to Margaret’, is published next month by Head of Zeus
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