Last updated 05:41, Friday, 03 October 2008

Dressed to the teeth – for a man who still prefers jeans and T-shirts – his smile wasn’t quite so wide as usual. He’s normally such a happy chap.

When he grins, your jaws can ache just looking at him.

“Dad, it’s only a number,” I said, making a stab at cheery reassurance.

“Aye, I know. But it’s a blooming big number.”

It was his birthday. His 80th birthday. Quite an achievement, I’d say. Not because he’d cheated the prescribed three score and ten thing – nothing is prescribed these days – but because he’d arrived at 80 without ever leaving 45. And that really is an achievement. One that’s typical of him – Yorkshire’s own wide-smiling Peter Pan.

We’d gathered close to his home in a country restaurant of his choice for the celebration he’d wanted. Family and a very big dinner – to match his number, I suppose. Even by merely glancing at the menu, he knew what he’d got us into, though he tried to deny it by feigning surprise.

“These look like they might be Cumbrian portions. You know... big. Sorry.”

He wasn’t at all. Dad’s always been a poor liar with a big appetite. Some things just never change.

Pondering the source of a slow-braised lamb shank – “It probably comes from up your way,” he ordered a pint of Jennings Bitter.

“Notice that? Cumbrian ale in Yorkshire. Always a good pint!”

There was a theme developing... again. He’s none too subtle either.

The funny thing about this tall, strapping, laughing Yorkshireman is that now that he’s achieved his big number, what he really wants is to be a tall, strapping, laughing Cumbrian with an encyclopaedic knowledge of micro-brewery specialities. Oh and he’s going to win the Lottery too.

Though Mum, his long-suffering, gentle wife of 56 years, rolls her eyes and dismisses his ambitions as the continuing foolishness of a dreamer, he’s utterly convinced he’ll manage both – the Lotto jackpot coming first, to ease the pain of an upheaval she dreads and will not countenance until someone waves a wand to make it happen without effort.

“I don’t know what you’re worried about,” he keeps saying, should ever a problem be spotted approaching from the middle distance. “I’ll have won the Lottery by then... and we’ll all be living in Brampton.”

He has repeated it so often, I’ve started believing him. Dads and daughters, see? There’s a closeness there that tends to make them as daft as each other. The older they get, the dafter they get – and closer, of course. Both of us suspect some awful accounting mistake when neither of us wins – which we will soon. Because he says so.

I don’t know why people make such a fuss about growing older. From what I see of it from close-up, it seems quite fun – in a do your own thing and hang the consequences kind of way.

Maybe I’m just lucky, having two parents refusing to be diminished by their numbers.

But it seems to me old age gets too much of a bad press. It is, after all, better than the alternative – that being callow youth’s instinct for uncertainty and bother.

Even when, in later years, health is less than perfect, when pensions don’t quite match long-held aspirations and when mobility slows creaking knees down a bit – or a lot – there’s much to be said for a giggle over a pint of Jennings, a lamb shank and a diary date for a Lotto win.

Even when convinced old days were best and they don’t make films like Casablanca anymore, there’s great enjoyment when you keep a twinkle in the eye and a couple of dreams up your sleeve.

It was that kind of weekend really. Age turned out to be a prominent consideration even when, meeting girlfriends for a catch up prior to the family birthday do.

“Did you not know her husband had died?” Diane was pleased to be passing on gossipy news.

“Wasn’t he older than her?”

“Oh yes! Much! And very vain.”

“What does vanity have to do with anything?”

“He was so vain, he wouldn’t admit his age – even refused to collect his pension so he could pretend to be younger. When he died she drew years and years worth of pension payments – literally thousands and thousands of pounds!”

No wonder she speaks so fondly of him. What price vanity? In Geoffrey’s case about £40,000 apparently... almost a Lottery win. Word has it she’s looking for another husband. Age will not wither her... nor any of us, if we keep our dreams alive and eyes twinkling.

Heading home to Cumbria,.. after big hugs and teary goodbyes, diary dates were logged with certainty.

“If not before, I’ll see you both at Christmas in Brampton.”

Strapping, wide-smiling Peter Pan winked.

“It’ll be before,” he said. “I’ll have won the Lottery by then.”