Age is a simple word that really shouldn't need any introduction or explanation. Consider the following. It is the entry for 31 October 1965 in the diary of the British comedian and writer, Kenneth Williams:

There is nothing exceptional about this extract; quite the opposite. I could have chosen any number of examples of people talking or writing about age and about the impact that age has on their lives.

Williams died in 1988 after a long career that included acting in many of the celebrated Carry On films. This diary entry is representative of a certain characteristic bitterness that he felt about his public persona. What it also indicates is that age was a matter of concern to him: he wanted to ‘play [his] own age’ and to appear younger than the ‘old’ characters he had previously been given.

Diaries that are published are, of course, edited, and editors often include footnotes to explain details for the reader. However, there are no such footnotes attached to the above entry, and this confirms, should this be needed, that readers are assumed to know what is meant by the word ‘age’ and how it relates to a sense of personal identity. It is not difficult to imagine the conversation that might have taken place between Williams and Peter Rogers and the ways in which the actor might have insisted on playing his own age.

Typically actors are made up, sometimes to appear younger and sometimes older. Williams was 39 when he wrote the above entry, and it is possible that he was made to appear older in his earlier films: lines drawn on his face or a greyish wig placed on his head, perhaps. Sometimes, in extremes, actors wear masks in order to appear very much older. The concept of ‘the mask of age’ has been much discussed in social gerontology and I consider it again in Chapter Five.