Yesterday, while in a queue waiting to be served at a trendy Pets Parlour in Gloucester Road, the lady in front of me, with her young daughter, said. 'Let the young man be served first while we make up our mind.' The fact that I am almost seventy seemed to go unrecognised.
That certain feeling of not knowing if the woman was being mildly sarcastic or perfectly sincere took hold of me for a second or two. Smiling, I said thank you and moved forward to be served. I find this ambivalence about age typical of London: either I'm being addressed as 'young man' or I'm being offered seats on the tube by twenty year olds because 'You look as if you need it, sir'. Kindness and thoughtfulness rule the day in London, I find frequently. In Devon, I get asked to show my passport by suspicious bus drivers before they let me use my Freedom pass.
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