Dorian Gray going wrong! (From Times Series)

Dorian Gray going wrong!

8:44am Wednesday 15th October 2008

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Every day I pass this portrait photo hanging in the hallway of our apartment and take note of this pleasant looking middle aged former editor in a smart dark blue suit and a white shirt -- then have a reality check face to face with the updated me in the mirror in the bathroom.

Oh, to see ourselves as others see us. It's accepted that the first sign of age is when policemen start to look young to you - I guess I'm a few stages further on from that.

A lady on the Northern Line the other day stood up to offer me her seat, thereby reversing the role of a lifetime for me. A gentleman by nature, I muttered "No thanks", but she insisted and, with all eyes on me, I sank into the seat knowing how Dorian Gray must have felt when things started to go wrong.

Mind you, I reckon I peaked age-wise when my name appeared in the Hendon Times 50 Years Ago column as a personality of a byegone era.

Reporters ring these days to ask for details of events well in the past and of personalities from the parish of Hendon, where I have lived since the Thirties, who have died. Only last week I recalled and mourned the Rev Leslie Hardman, the former minister of Hendon Synagogue, one of the most interesting and compassionate of the thousands of personalities I have interviewed in my time.

One reader of my two-page column in the Barnet FC programme wrote, anonymously of course, to say that my anecdotes were old hat and many younger supporters did not know the people I was writing about.

In an era where, so we are told, many young people think Churchill is a dog in an insurance ad rather than Britain's inspirational wartime leader who saved the country from the Nazis I guess the names of Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney, Bobby Charlton, George Best etc, etc can be baffling.

Anyway, in my old age I am currently comforted by the flood of letters arriving on the doormat telling me that I am well placed for a £250,000 first prize in a draw.

My postcode has been confirmed as one of the potential prize delivery zones. I have been allocated six numbers in the final stage. The prize draw manager has even indicated to me personally that he would be happy to drive with me (with my £250,000 prize) to the bank or building society of my choice.

The Signy name, they tell me, has "satisfied every requirement so far in the rigorous selection criteria" ... which is slightly intriguing. What requirement? Is selection made on looks - perhaps someone has seen the photo in our hall, - on literary ability, name dropping potential or, hey, that's an unusual name give him the money.

Anyway I am agog with excitement. This is something that doesn't happen to many people of my age. My major concern at the moment is trying to decide which bank I shall direct the prize draw manager to with the money. I gather the rules have changed ... one doesn't go in the red now but in the Brown!

I have decided that I shall modestly announce at the presentation ceremony that I owe it all to my wife - she'll spend it anyway! - and that I am giving up travelling on the Northern Line.

I might even smile like that chap in the photo in the hall.

Footnote: The book Forgive Us Our Press Passes, to which 64 of Fleet Street's finest have contributed chapters, is due in the shops later this week. Proceeds will go to the worthy Great Ormond Street Hospital. My chapter is about the formation of the Football Writers Association and the start of the Footballer of the Year award in 1948.