I know I'm getting older: it's so evident, my hair, what's left that it is, is more grey than the black it once was; there are crease lines begin to wind across my forehead, and some seem to be deepening. Moreover, there's the well known optical ageing paradox: squint to see anything look distance clearly, but glasses off to view anything at short range. These then are just a few of the recognisable, indeed folkloric, indices of ageing.

I was quite unexpectedly reminded again this afternoon, unexpectedly, because it came from my Bank. I was in my local branch arranging to transfer an account that I had with another provider to them. Straightforward, and when it's all complete, one that I hope I can say was painless.

As the bank employee finished the paperwork she needed to complete, she flicked through my records on her PC, and surprised us both, when she spotted that I'd first opened an account (I had n't done it myself, it was my parents who had) with her bank in 1971.

"You've had an account with us for 39 years". Probably longer than she had been alive.

How often have I seen in the smaller columns of the newspaper, a story about someone who's had the same phone number for fifty years, or driven the same car for forty years. That's who I've become now.

Age, how shall we recognise thee?