Rodney Dale

The advertisements promise it’s fun to grow old

For it opens a door on devices untold

Assuming that (1) I have plenty of dough,

and (2) wish to spend it to keep on the go.

Mobility’s all — I can get anywhere

If I care to invest in a battery chair

Around and about on electrical seat

I can block up the pavements and run over feet,

Get stuck in the twitten, and run out of zip

As I vainly attempt to escape from a dip.

And when I return to the home of my dreams

I am no more restricted, because there are schemes

For electrical lifts to get me to my bed

Where I lower my feet or indeed raise my head

On a mattress that twines into lines serpentine

At the touch of a keypad’s appropriate sign.

(And if there’s a power cut, the mattress returns

To the uniform flatness it usually spurns.)

My bathroom now boasts of a bath into which

I can walk, shut the door, and then, flicking a switch

I can fill it with water through gold-effect taps

And in spa hydrotherapy (optional) collapse

So the bubbles can massage my body all over

In the manner endorsed by EH of Andover

Who writes: ‘Your spa bath has erased all my cares,

I’ve told all my friends, and now they’re telling theirs.’

(And if, on reflection, you don’t like your pool,

They’ll take it away and refund you in full.)

So now I emerge and, well-towelled and fresh,

With caress of silk dressing-gown soothing my flesh

I don my green slippers, fur-lined, extra broad

(It’s a two-for-one offer one has to afford).

I step to my stairlift, descend to the hall

Not forgetting to pick up my pendant Aid-Call

So that, should I fall down, I can summon assistance

Instead of lying impotent, seeing in the distance

The neighbours, who pass and repass in the street,

Little recking I’m powerless to rise to my feet.

But that’s speculation. I go to my chair

The Recliner de Luxe in the window, and there

Do the Telegraph crossword in three minutes flat

Keeps the old brain in trim — there’s no problem with that.

* * * * * *

And with all the devices to make life a pleasure

We should pass our old age in some comfortable leisure

In fact, there’s no reason — at least I can’t find any — um —

Why we shouldn’t last through for another millennium.