Old People

Now, I was brought up by old people. Namely my grandparents and various great-aunts, great-uncles and assorted other relatives who turned up whilst my mother and father were off keeping the financial ship afloat. My memories of their rearing largely centre around the massive meals we always seemed to be having, and endless exhortations to 'be polite' (the usual 'please', 'thank you', 'excuse me' etc etc etc plus some rather more refined add-ons courtesy of my grandmother - the 'gently-born' one). It seemed at the time there wasn't a minute went by when I wasn't being harangued about something; but it had a point because at the end of the process I like to think the oldies turned out a socially-acceptable human being. (Well, I can hope, I suppose!).

Rapidly approaching middle-age, and exhorting my own offspring on an hourly basis about something or other, I am beginning to wonder 'What happened?' . Naively, perhaps, I fondly imagined that adults, continually telling me to 'be polite' actually practised what they preached. Was I wrong? Did today's OAPs miss out on the social indoctrination I endured? Or have they just given up? Because after enduring both Londis and Waitrose today I can assure you, Reader, there was precious little courtesy evident - and I regret to say the biggest offenders were OLD PEOPLE.

Take one example this morning. Standing in front of the chiller shelves and attempting to track down something I wanted after YET ANOTHER re-organisation chez Londis, I had a wire basket applied to my back, none too gently, whilst what closely resembled a nylon-clad manatee shoved its way past. Normally, I would shrug and ignore it, but today I was Not In The Mood, so I loudly regaled the chiller shelf with "It normally helps if you say 'excuse me'". Surprisingly the manatee, looking slightly moist in its Stalinist grey mac and three sweaters (it was a sunny morning), turned round and rather aggressively spluttered "What?". Ignoring the opportunity to point out it really should have said 'Pardon, were you speaking to me?' or something of the sort, I launched into:

Me: "I said it would help if you said excuse me if you want to get past"
Manatee: "You were in the way"
Me: "So why not say 'excuse me'?"
Manatee: "You weren't looking"
Me: "I don't use my eyes to hear - you should have said 'excuse me'"
Manatee: "You were in the way"

By this time I was getting more than a little irritated. People were also starting to 'look' - which in a village this size means news of an altercation in Londis is going to have reached the total populace in about 30 seconds. And that's on a bad day.

Me: "So you say 'excuse me', I move - and everybody is happy"
Manatee: "You weren't looking".
Me: "You have already said that. The bottom line is, you should have said excuse me rather than shove me in the back with your basket and push your way past. It was rude".
Manatee: "You should have got out of my way".
Me: "As you so eloquently pointed out, I wasn't looking. If you'd opened your mouth and been at least polite, I would have happily moved out of your way. There was no need to shove me with your basket, just a bit of politeness would have worked".
Manatee: "You should be ashamed of yourself, young people today have no manners"

At this point, even I was (almost) rendered speechless. However, I mustered one last shred of dignity and for the benefit of the assembled throng came out with

Me: "Look, I am trying to bring up my son to be polite. To say 'please' and 'thank you' and - yes, even 'excuse me'. I stand no chance whatsoever if people like you think you have the right to shove your way around without even basic courtesy. What example is it setting to children if old people like you push your way through without any attempt at politeness? [I was getting into my stride now] It's not people standing in front of counters who are making the country a horrible place to live but people like you who behave like animals".

I think this was a bit too much even for the Manatee. It launched into a torrent of invective which I shan't repeat in case kiddies are watching. Suffice it to say I'd had enough of the Steradent and TCP fumes coming off it and with a "I think you've said quite enough now, thank you", walked off to pay. Now I'm just hoping this wasn't grandmamma of one of the two ruling village Families, because if she was, this blog is going to be the shortest in history owing to my house being burned down tonight.

Having downed several pints of tea back at home I realised I'd actually run out of quite a lot of things and needed to go to Waitrose. As this is a 30 mile round trip it's not something you do without thought, but I couldn't get out of it. Anyway, still thinking about my encounter with Manatee, I noticed whilst pushing the trolley around just how impolite people actually are. And again.... it was the oldies who were the biggest offenders and totally without shame about it too.

When I was a child if I dared to say 'but that was rude' about one perceived injustice or another I was always hushed up with 'Remember these people fought the War for you'. Which, like every other British kid, having been indoctrinated by numerous viewings of every WW2 movie the BBC/ITV could lay their corporate mitts on, I could accept; and in fact I viewed The Old with something approaching awe - had these people really been zooming around in tanks and lobbing hand grenades into all the empty farmhouses they could find??

Unfortunately for The Old these days - YOU DO NOT HAVE THIS EXCUSE. Most of you were only capable of lobbing Teddy out of the pram when the Blitz was on, so don't try and pull that one, please. You don't have any excuses for your shoving, queue-jumping or general air of You Owe Me Something because I don't - especially not if you can't preface a request with 'please', say 'thank you' if I hold a door open for you or get out of your way, or even just smile if I smile at you (which I do try to do from time to time, as I'm a bit fed up with seeing so many glum faces around).

So, if any of you out there are reading this, just try it - just Be Polite, even if it's only for a day. We might find this country is a better place if enough of us remember the smacked hands we all got for our childhood offences and did something to put it right. You can't expect politeness if you don't dish it out yourselves.