The amiable Dutchman in the reception office beamed at us as he rose to increase the volume on his ipod. “I LOVE this”, he said, in the expectation of our immediate affirmation, or at least the knowledge of what it was. Catching our blank faces, he enlightened us with a ‘how could you not know?’ expression. “It is DEEP PURPLE!” he boomed-“My wife got it for me. Fantastic!” Husband murmured into the ensuing pause-“Now if it had been Led Zeppelin”, and I followed with, “Well-Deep Purple was never a huge favourite of mine, but I know ‘Smoke on the Water’”… The Dutchman shrugged, grinning and eulogising over the music of ‘our’ generation; a strange remark, since he was at least twenty five years short of ‘our’ generation.

                Each generation feels its culture to be the best, the most creative, the most brilliant, the most enjoyable of all time. Despite the Dutchman’s love of Deep Purple, he is certainly not of the generation that spawned them, although it is common for non-British Europeans to be fond of rock music’s dinosaurs.

                The older I become, the more remote I feel from today’s music and culture. I begin to understand where the phrase ‘generation gap’ [much used when I was a teenager] came from, and even those fads which have themselves become ‘old hat’ have passed me by. Bands that are now doing ‘comeback’ tours hail from after my time. That [old] boy band, Take That inspire a feverish tsunami  of middle-aged-housewifely hysteria from thirty and forty somethings, yet to me the likes of Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams still seem like teenage upstarts!

                I admit to having given up on what is new, other than coming across occasional eulogies in arts and culture supplements. At least I can say I’ve read about an up and coming artist, or seen their name. During my Pilates class I was even able to put a singer’s name [Ellie Goulding]to a song recently. But mostly it passes me by. And in an even more startling turn of events, it is all beginning to pass my children by, too.

                In the wondrous van there is a music player, filled with the kind of music beloved by Husband, a fair number of songs we both like and a few things I enjoy listening to but attract derisory comments from him. Amongst these are several numbers by Coldplay [deemed middle-class pap- a label that may well be true but nevertheless does not impair my listening experience]. I still think of Coldplay as ‘new’, although I read that Chris Martin is 39. Thirty nine! He is tipping into the wastelands of middle age-and separated [or whatever they are calling it]-a sure sign of middle age.

                My father ignored contemporary music trends altogether, preferring [allegedly] classical, or ‘serious’ music, as he called it. He was fond of asserting that I would grow out of popular music to adopt his [adult] tastes. How wrong could he be? It was a disappointment he took to his grave…