From Trump to Ranieri: is this the era of the older man?

Terry Wogan, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Keith Emerson, Victoria Wood – so far this year the Telegraph’s obituaries desk has used more than double the normal number of celebrity obits.

This paper does not, however, have a separate department dedicated to celebrating old chaps like Ranieri who are surviving and thriving spectacularly. Perhaps it should. Never, in all the fields of human endeavour, has so much been achieved by so many fully active men who, according to actuarial calculations, ought to be sizing themselves up for the wooden overcoat.

Top of the list, indisputably, is dear old Claudio in winning the Premiership for a club that was almost relegated last season; but I fear that even he might be displaced in November if the Donald (14/6/1946) does, in fact, pull off his far more improbable feat of winning the Presidency of the United States of America at the first attempt, without ever having previously held political office. The Trumperino, as he is known in this house, will himself be completely outshone, however, if Bernie Sanders (b 8/9/1941) should turn out to be the old stager putting his feet up on the desk in the Oval Office.

Outsiders upsetting the apple cart like young turks in their old age: what on earth is going on? You may not endorse or even easily stomach the political views of either of those candidates, but surely you can’t fail to tip your hat to men in or approaching their eighth decade who have undergone the physical and mental ordeal of the primaries without once nodding off on camera or being stretchered away to coronary care?

It’s brutal out there, I tell you. Few people know better than I how gruelling this business can be: I’ve sat through every episode of The West Wing. The wonderful thing about these guys is that they don’t seem to have the slightest inkling that they ought to be, if not turning up their toes then at least gratefully sliding their feet into slippers. The natural instinct to turn away from the business of the world in your seventh decade and address more eternal concerns seems not to have entered their noggins.

Younger men who are eager for position and power themselves may resent these elderly cuckoos who insist on occupying the nest, sucking up all opportunity and lifeblood in the culture while refusing to do the decent thing and drop off the twig; but those youthful insurgents are not always producing better men to supplant the ancients. As Ray Parlour observed of the dissidents in the Arsenal crowd who keep calling for the replacement of Arsene Wenger (b. 22/10/1949): “Don’t you think the Arsenal board would have sacked him if they could have found a better candidate?”

Wouldn’t you guess that same observation would have applied equally to Sir Alex Ferguson (b. 31/12/1941) when he was manager at Manchester United and Paul Dacre (b. 14/11/1948), still editor of the Daily Mail as he has been for almost as long as Ferguson was at Old Trafford? As the board of Man U has shown and as the Harmsworth family (owners of the Mail) has proved many times, they show no sentiment or mercy when they believe a better man can be appointed for the job. Patently and transparently, they can’t find one.

Despite the constant maundering that men are in crisis and are now reduced to blundering helplessly across the face of the planet in search of a role, these champion old geezers all seem conspicuously content in their lives and their work. One characteristic they seem to share in common is that they are all still dedicated to improving their art or their skills.

The golfer Tom Watson (4/9/1949) and the Rolling Stone Keith Richards (18/12/1943) both explain that they continue to practice and to play in the hope of getting better. In the guitarist’s case, one occasionally senses there might be room for improvement; but what can the winner of eight majors, including five Opens, have left to learn? Watson voiced the maxim for every old gaffer plugging resolutely round the links when he said, “If ever once I could feel I knew how to play this game, I’d give it up there and then.”

The day before he celebrated his 92nd birthday, Sir Neville Marriner (b 15 April 1924) was on BBC R3’s In Tune with Suzy Klein.  She asked the old treasure why he was going to conduct a concert on his birthday rather than taking the day off. He explained that, as a freelance musician, he doesn’t like to see gaps in his diary because they might suggest that his career is failing. She tried to assure him he probably oughtn’t to worry on that score.

Claudio Ranieri looks as if he might continue that way. Having achieved the most extraordinary triumph in sporting history, any man following a conventional career path might feel that the moment had arrived to lay down his knife and fork and rise from the table, so to speak. Not Claudio. He’s looking forward to next season. Perhaps he thinks there’s still room for improvement.