Life finds a way of making you feel old. I don’t mean the aches, pains or John Major revisionism. I’m not even referring to my dentist, whose new patient forms contain age categories with the gumption to lump me in with 49-year-olds. As ever, it is through the eyes of children.
Recently, I was explaining to my niece the concept of pre-vaccine chickenpox parties, at which point she looked at me with the sort of confused horror a paediatrician might reserve for someone online suggesting that toddlers be encouraged to play in asbestos.
“It must have been hard back in the olden days, Grandpa Jack,” she didn’t quite say but was surely thinking.
At least it got me thinking about growing up in the 1990s and in particular, the textbooks that were forever just out of date. Only a few still had the Soviet Union on the map, but the dissolution of Yugoslavia played havoc with my Key Stage 2 preparation. Thank goodness for the English language school down the road, which delivered a steady stream of kindly Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian au pairs to aid me with my geography homework.
A further sign of advanced age was the reading material. One particular short story I vividly recall being set was The Fib. Written in 1975 by George Layton, it is a story about a boy growing up in a working-class town in 1950s northern England who, sick of the bullying he was suffering at school, blurted out a massive lie: “My uncle is Bobby Charlton.”
Even back in 1998, what with his optimistic combover in glorious black and white, Charlton was something of an anachronism. In 2026, he may as well have roamed the Lancashire hills alongside the Celts. But while I have never claimed any familial connection to him, Charlton did play a leading role in one of the strangest days of my childhood.
Off the hook
Arsenal were playing Manchester United and my Dad had somehow secured tickets in a box. He knew someone who worked for someone who caddied for an ex-lover, I didn’t ask questions. What I do remember is getting to Old Trafford, walking into the exclusive lounge and then being directed into an even older-money, oak-panelled room of English football lore. Oh my god, this was the directors box.
As I entered, I heard the voice of an elderly (I was 12 years old — everyone was elderly) man enquiring if he could take my coat. I kindly agreed, turned around, looked up and, yup, it was Sir Bobby Charlton. Now, I don’t like the word ‘surreal.’ It’s a lazy, slightly self-flattering, verbal tic of a particularly Guardian-ish register. But this was surreal.
“Bobby Charlton just hung up my coat!” I breathlessly told my Dad, who was no doubt even more pleased with proceedings. Forget late-night pick-ups or the purchasing of a first razor blade — this was fatherhood. And things only got surrealer from there. Because Man Utd chief executive Peter Kenyon was about to enter the fray.