Mike Priestley: Who's Counting?

That's us, I suppose - though it goes without saying that none of us is older than 27 at heart. That's why so many of us felt cheered up at the announcement that the place where we spent hours of our younger days is to get a new lease of life.

We remember the Rolarena burning down and the Locarno rising from its ashes: a place where ballroom bands and pop groups played for us and a giant spangled ball rotated above us.

It was at the Locarno that we were young and where, thanks to John Pennington's plans, we can be young again with the sounds of the 1960s and the sort of big-band music that used to be featured when Come Dancing was broadcast from there.

Mr Pennington is that rare thing in these days: an entrepreneur who appreciates that it isn't just young people who need to be catered for. As he says, there is enough now going on in Bradford to meet their needs. The middle to older generations also like a good night out with a dance and a bit of a bop and a few pints. That's been made clear enough over the past decade by the success of the rock'n'roll revival nights at the Midland and other nostalgia shows there.

There's a big audience for the music of times past among those of us who recall the sounds created by the Graham Warner Orchestra and Patti Brook and remember Alvin Stardust when he was Shane Fenton.

Well done, John Pennington, for recognising that and catering for people of a more mature tendency (in our bodies, if not in our minds) as well as the younger crowd. May your Variety Club be a huge success.

The other week I posed the question "When does elderly begin?" after that adjective had been attached to a couple who were in their late 50s and early 60s.

Hazel Carter knows. "I can tell you exactly when I became elderly," she writes from Haworth. "It was January 7, 1999, when I reached my 60th birthday.

"I went to apply for my bus pass and the application form states 'Elderly Person's Travel Permit'. I was horrified and raved at my husband that I wasn't elderly. To that he replied 'Are you a wrinkly, then?' A big help!

"So overnight from being 59 I became a pensioner and elderly. I may add though that I don't feel at all elderly."

And nor should you at 60, Hazel. You're barely getting into your stride in the middle bit of your life. "Elderly" comes much later on. That application form has got it all wrong. In the interests of accuracy, good manners and the morale of the over-60s, it should be for a "Concessionary Travel Permit".

I Don't Believe It

The big moan in this column last week was about motorists who don't indicate before they turn. This week reader Mrs Peggy Mendies enters the debate with a complaint about what appears to be widespread misunderstanding over bus lanes.

"Any vehicle can use them outside the peak hours when they're supposed to be for buses only," she says. "But hardly anyone does."

Which is very true. As Mrs Mildew and I tootle about in our little saloon during the day, we often find that ours is the only vehicle using the bus lane. Everyone else is crammed into the remaining lane or lanes. I sometimes wonder if I've got it wrong and ought to join them.

But then I check with one of the signs and, sure enough, they're there for everybody to use at that time of day. Maybe everyone has been so conditioned to keep out of them that they don't like to use them even when it's allowed.

So think on, you car drivers. Outside the morning and teatime rush hours you've as much right to be in the bus lane as buses have, so don't clutter up the rest of the road unnecessarily.

More evidence arrived this week of a Who's Counting? readership in Australia, in the shape of a long airmail letter from Franz L Caddell of Bendigo, Victoria. He writes: "You, Hector, are more widely read than you would expect in your wildest dreams".

Apparently Mr Caddell has friends who live in Leaventhorpe Lane, Thornton, and send him cuttings of this column. It's a bit frightening, isn't it, to think that your ramblings are going halfway around the globe? What Mr Caddell has to offer is lots of evidence that life for pensioners in Australia is rather easier than for their counterparts in the UK. It isn't just the telephone calls, which are reasonable enough even at peaks times but ridiculously cheap off-peak compared to ours (you can call from side to side or top to bottom of that vast country between 7pm and midnight and talk for as long as you like for £1.25).

It's other prices too. Mr Caddell and his wife Mrs Caddell (or Margaret, as he rather familiarly refers to her), came across to Britain last year to spend a month with their Thornton friends. What they found was that many prices were much the same here as in Australia in terms of figures. The difference is that the rate of exchange was $3 Australian to the £.

So, for example, a man's haircut costing £8 here would cost $8 dollars in Australia, a bottle of what Mr Caddell describes as "excellent" red wine at Morrisons at £4.95 would cost $4.95, and so on - a third the price.

"We found it all quite expensive by comparison," he writes, then goes on to list some of the little perks that pensioners receive courtesy of the Victorian Government.

"We receive one free rail travel voucher per year, rebate of 15 per cent on our winter heating and lighting accounts, and the same on our municipal rates. I don't want to start mass emigration to Oz with these little 'tit-bits', but it is a pretty good country in which to live."

Sounds it, Mr Caddell. In fact, after Mrs Mildew read your letter she quite overcame her aversion to Rolf Harris and wrote off to Australia House to see what the chances are of us emigrating. I've told her that I think they're nil at our ages, but she's taken to wearing a hat with corks dangling from the brim and calling me "Sport" so she can prove to any official who interviews us that she's keen to be an enthusiastic Australian and not a whingeing Pom..

She's not an easy person to live with when she gets a bee in her bonnet, isn't Mrs Mildew.

Incidentally, Franz Caddell has had a stab at guessing her given name, which I told readers that I believe began with "B" - although it's so long since I was allowed to call her by it that I can't really remember.

"It doesn't start with 'B'," he writes. "It's quite obvious that her name is Mildred."

Mildred Mildew? I think not. I'd have remembered that. It's in the same sort of class as Edward Woodward and Norman Normal, isn't it?

If you have a gripe about anything, drop a line to me, Hector Mildew, c/o Newsroom, T&A, Hall Ings, Bradford BD1 1JR, email me or leave any messages for me with Mike Priestley on (44) 0 1274 729511. If you've already sent in a grumble and it hasn't appeared yet, don't worry - it will do.

Yours Expectantly,

Hector Mildew

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