Well, it’s been coming. As I write this, I am unsure how I feel as I, and I genuinely can’t believe I’m approaching 50 years of age. That’s half a century or 50 per cent of an antique. Or nearly 62 per cent through the average lifespan of a UK adult and, well, you catch my drift…

I still frequent the Adidas trainer sale website yet find myself often sending the products back as I look in the mirror and, despite feeling like a teenager, the physical does not lie. The signs were on the wall as to the ageing process probably a decade or so ago. Travelling to a pub with my brother, eight years my junior, the barman asked what my son would like to drink. Then, a few years later, on a trip to a nightclub in Watford with my wife, we became unofficial bag security. At least three groups of young women asked if we could look after their bags for them and at one stage, we couldn’t move to the bar due to the sea of faux leather handbags. We looked at each other, in silence, and made our way home for a nice cup of tea and Match of the Day on catch up.

It is a daily reminder in my job: Teenagers, as they are want to do, believe they are the first to hear some music or use a product. They remain convinced that old codgers like yours truly wear a suit around the house, and are cloth eared when I try to explain that we were listening to Kate Bush and the Cure long before they became kitsch on shows like Stranger Things. I even had a seat offered to me by a young buck on the tube recently and, despite the genuine decency of such an action, I took umbrage and refused and scowled, before I remembered my manners.

I groan as I get up now. I cannot bound up or down stairs three at a time like I could up a decade ago. Simple tasks become agonising as the ageing process begins to take hold although it gets me out of loading the dishwasher, so every cloud and all that…..

I would, if they would get back to physical meets, no doubt be making my GP surgery my second home, as their phone number is on my friends and family frequently used list. I am on first name terms with my dentist and even the Amazon guy has stopped asking for my year of birth when my latest haul of vape sundry is being delivered.

Despite denials and evidence slapping me around the chops at every stage, I am nearly 50. Mortgaged up, with life, pipe and dishwasher insurance, my main hobby is turning the lights off and hanging towels up after the kids, as I bemoan the fact that I am morphing into as my father, as he did my father’s father.

But there is respite: On my bike I forget my age and happily overtake 20 somethings with little effort, although no doubt they don’t spend 12 hours inert with heat packs post workout. But no, the reminders are there. I am asked daily ‘what do you want to do for your 50th? My answer of ‘to curl up in a ball and cry’ are met with uncertainty as to my seriousness, and even I am unsure: Do nothing and I will sit regretting one of the last times I will have family and friends together, in one place, before the inevitable bell tolls for some. Do something and my decision making comes into question: A meal would be pleasant, but dull. Drinks in a pub would turn into a full-blown party and I will be obliged to stay until the end and ensure the younger invitees get home safely and don’t puke on the pub carpet. A road trip across America is my preferred choice, but job, kids, life and finances scupper that on the starting blocks, so as yet I am genuinely none the wiser. Maybe, just maybe we will take a trip to a nightclub in Watford and one last hurrah guarding others bags as the realisation dawns that, actually, this is what I have become: a mild mannered bag carrier, at peace with his lot, as I wind down for the last few acts…

  • Brett Ellis is a teacher