Fading Light

Old age is much more fun than I expected.

It would be easy to focus on such downsides as stiffening sinews and dodgy memory. Or the pills popped to regulate blood pressure and the reliance upon chiropody. (I have heard no better definition of advancing years than bending down to tie your shoelaces and wondering ‘Is there anything else I should be doing while I’m down here’.)

Perhaps the greatest joy of geriatrica is that there are few deadlines. If I don’t get around to doing it today, there’s always tomorrow. And if there is no tomorrow? Whatever the future, I hope to be granted a few more healthy years. There is still so much to do.

Much more than I can ever hope to see, hear or afford. And I remain curious about the future. I would really like to know what happens next.

I regret that I have never succeeded in keeping a proper diary beyond the very first few days in January.

However, with 2004-2005 the year in which I completed 50 years in the theatre, it was now or never. So I wrote down the year as it happened. Inevitably I am rather

uncertain about sharing it. Who could possibly be interested in the travels and thoughts of a lighting designer enjoying his slow fade? On the other hand, there seemed to be a favourable response to similar material in the columns that Tabman and Walter Plinge contributed to Tabs and Cue.

Inevitably this is a feel-good book. Inevitable, because at age 70 I resolved that henceforth I would allow myself a lifestyle based on the pursuit of hedonism. No more reading, listening or viewing because I ought to – only because I wanted to. So this Journal records experiences that were chosen to give me pleasure.