Dame Edna creator’s thoughts on ageing
Barry Humphries’ observations on getting old may resonate with you
Barry Humphries, the Australian writer and actor best known for his character, Dame Edna Everage, died in April 2023 at the age of 89.
It was a good innings, and he remained active and alert to the very end.
Humphries was a witty and perceptive person who had an opinion on most things. And there’s a video online where he expresses, apparently with very little preparation, his thoughts about ageing.
He begins by saying he’d come to the BBC studios in Bristol, England, to do another interview and they asked him, “since you’re here, would you do as another free appearance and talk about growing old and what it’s like”.
Here is some of what he had to say:
“It’s a totally unfamiliar experience you don’t notice it, you see. I was very annoyed when I turned a big number recently. [When people] ask me how old I am, I say I’m approaching 70 — from the wrong direction and I let them think about that.
“But I had this birthday and a very wicked friend of mine gave me as a gift an hourglass. Can you imagine what it’s like to have that on your bedside table? …
“I find that growing old is sad only in the sense that the world looks exactly the same as it did when I was young. And if I look at an attractive young woman, as I have recently, I feel exactly the same emotion.
“I feel I appreciate just the things that I would have appreciated in my youth. The only difference is that she doesn’t see me. That’s poignant and also, of course, absurd.”
He concludes: “… they say when you really get old, the policemen look younger. To me, it’s only the young who look younger.”
Has Barry Humphries nailed it? How does getting older feel to you?