A Significant Rite of Passage by Dennis Hamley
You are reading this on my eightieth birthday. Yes, The Big 8 . I don't find this easy to believe. Twenty years ago, reaching such a milestone seemed the merest fantasy. Ten years ago I thought it possible but extremely unlikely. And now, here I am. Made it. I feel fine - actually, I feel about forty - and confidently expect in twenty years' time to get my congratulatory telegram from King William. It is, I suppose, a sort of Rite of Passage. And of course, such a rite makes one pause and survey. And this survey leads me to a stark cleavage in life which I don't think I'm the only one to experience - the great divide between private happiness and public misery. The first is never a given: we either work for it or it falls into our laps. Or both. The second is always with us - and, I'm hardly alone in thinking, particularly sharply now. How lucky I am to have the first in spades. Its profound aspects I'll leave because they are too deep for words. I'...