Note of explanation: ‘ Oooymphq,’ the noise recorded and then written by my voice to text gizmo on my phone when I have to get up…..and sit down…….and so…
Oh fuck, Got into bed only to realise that I’ve left the light on in the hall. oh fuck
And unlike my bedside light, Alexa doesn’t control the hall light, quite beyond her powers
So as I get up to go to turn the light out a little sound comes from my lungs, my throat, my belly, my mouth, as I raised myself out of the bed – oomf (my digital recorder can’t find the right syllables the right letters to capture the sound)
And yet that sound is so familiar, so common, if your that sort of age… oomph
Where does this sound come from? it didn’t happen 10 years ago when I was 60. When I was 60 I could get out of an arm chair even a low one without a sound. I could lower myself into the arm chair without a sound, so where does this sound come from now?
‘Humph’ writes my digital converter. …that’s getting closer
Is it some change in my geometry, in my trigonometry, in my weight, in my pivot, in my balance, have I got weaker in my arms, have I got fatter in my girth, does it all take so much more effort than it did when I was 60? I don’t believe so, I’m not so much bigger, I’m not so much weaker, so where does this sound come from?
‘Month’ no not month – hummph (like Humphrey Littleton) my digital recorder still struggling to find the right letters and now nothing this time, it’s got fed up with trying to capture the sound. OOMPH….. we’ve tried been there before it says, its given up….well it would, after all digital technology isn’t 70 yet….give it time…. Too young for Humphrey Littleton and too young to know what it’s like to be 70. Inevitably inadequate. Just you wait young digital clevercloggs , age will get you too.
But I’ve found the answer! The sound is a little devil specially originating from grandchildren. Grandchildren love to hear their Grandfather go ‘humph’ as he gets out of the chair or as he lowers himself into the chair. Yes, that’s where it comes from, those little devils, Hugo and Nora, Sammy and Buster, and no doubt from Wilfred. They come out of the grandchildren, like little dreams captured by the BFG, and go into the grandfather, and they giggle as a ‘month’ and a ‘month,…no not month monfth humph humph (digital limitations exposset….;Exposed; for goodness sake).
So it’s not science (so it’s not science) that proves the day, not science that shows the reason why we make such sounds when we get old. It’s magic, its mystery, it’s devilry, its cheeky, naughty, playful and a little bit cruel (crew crawl, come on digital Dave you’re well behind, you don’t don’t understand the magician, the sorcerer, that anti logic).
So do I resort to those automatic lifting chairs where you press a button and the seat lifts up to help you up? might need to before I’m 80. I can still prevent myself from making the sound if I focus and concentrate really carefully, but when I’m on my own, when there’s nobody around, ‘oomph’, the sound appears as I get out of bed to turn the fucking light out, and little chuckles can be heard from sleeping children all the way from Charlestown to Bearsden and Bradford on Avon.
Stephen Peter Arthur Frean Harrison 