Drinking patterns have changed radically in the course of one generation.
Newspapers report underage youngsters out of their heads on alcohol, wreaking all kinds of havoc. And we postwar baby-boomers now moving into our sixties and seventies are responsible, for we made alcohol respectable, an intrinsic part of everyday living.
We pioneered the concept of `pub culture' for both sexes, the civilized habit of wine with meals, the sober working week and the weekend binge. We instituted the post-work G&T or glass of wine while cooking, the "tea, coffee, wine?" option offered to visitors after two in the afternoon, the nightly beer and crisps in front of the telly.
We're the very ones lugging home the dozen lagers (cheaper than bottled water) and the `buy six wines and get 25 per cent off' offers along with the Saturday supermarketing. We're the respectable ladies-who-lunch exiting unsteadily from the restaurant when the staff start vacuuming round our feet, the men staying up to watch late-night movies, wakening at 3am with the beer-glass still balanced on their chest.
We're the buyers of jokey alcohol-related merchandise - the fridge magnet that says "alcohol is the answer - but I can't remember the question", the slogan-printed pinny, "I cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food", (all gifts from Daughter Dear.)
Like every dangerous but attractive habit, we didn't realise the damage we were doing to ourselves, nor the example we were setting to our children.
We were in an era where pubs and clubs were exclusively male. At 17 I went to my first real dance where refreshments consisted of tea and `minerals' and the fellas congregated at the back of the hall for easier access to the pub next door, from which they returned ruddier-faced and bolder.
I had my first drink at the age of 19 ¾ (half a pint of lager and lime) and my friend threatened to ring my parents. My 21st birthday was a family affair in a starchy hotel. Asked what I'd like to drink I responded, "I'll have a vodka and Coke." "No, she won't," said my mother and that was that.
What passed for the social whirl in our parts was drinking and dancing on a Saturday night. Lord, the concoctions we consumed - the `snowball' (advocaat, the consistency and colour of snot), Babycham (suitable for laydees). One venue specialised in `schooners of sherry from the wood'. Two glasses and your neck snapped like a broken daffodil.
As young marrieds the Loving Spouse and I, like all our friends, took our babies in carrycots to house-parties where they slept among the coats and drank Blue Nun or Bulgarian red, (we did, not the babies) and thought ourselves the acme of sophistication.
Meanwhile, the drinking culture was spreading - dinner parties, boys' nights out, girls' nights in, holidays abroad, book launches, exhibition openings - at the opening of an envelope, alcohol was present. A rash of off-licences erupted with their easy availability, low prices and infinite choice. Maturity brought a better class of poison. We bought bigger glasses and studiously ignored the whole scaremongering nonsense in the press about the number of units we ought to consume. Now the evidence is irrefutable and we can't help but be aware of what we're doing to ourselves.
We sixty-plussers fall victim to a unique set of circumstances. With retirement goes your role, your salary, status and identity. `Retired' - synonymous with uselessness and anonymity. Families reared but scattered, with their own lives to lead. Bereaved of a partner, we fear a burden on them.
Many of us remain active, engaged with a varied social life and a network of supportive friends but not all are so fortunate. Loneliness, isolation and a sense of purposelessness are the triple triggers in the elderly to seek solace in a bottle. As a generation, we've proven poor role-models for the young. While condemning their excesses we've condoned them by bad example. A sobering statistic - elderly public drinkers represent only 15 per cent of alcoholics. The other 85 per cent are behind Venetian blinds.
