We Lumas have the weight of the world on our shoulders

In the introduction to an anthology of his jazz record reviews, the poet Philip Larkin imagines his readers. They’re not exactly full of the joys of spring. He describes them as ‘sullen fleshy inarticulate men… whose first coronary is coming like Christmas’. Loaded down with ‘commitments and obligations and necessary observances’ they’re drifting helplessly towards ‘the darkening avenues of age and incapacity’. Everything that once made life sweet has deserted them and their only solace is the memory of the music they once loved.

I first read that passage 35 years ago and didn’t think it would apply to me one day. Admittedly, the men Larkin conjures up are more miserable than I’ll ever be. He describes their wives as ‘bitter’, their daughters as ‘lascivious’ and says that their cannabis-smoking sons have a contempt for ‘bread’ that is ‘matched only by their insatiable demand for it’. But I recognise the sense of injustice Larkin evokes — the feeling that your hard work and civic duty aren’t properly appreciated. You’ve never contributed more to society, yet you’re being readied for the knacker’s yard.

I now think of myself as a Luma — lower-upper-middle-aged. These are the years between 55 and 60 when you’re paying more tax than you ever have before; when you’re supporting not just your nearly grown-up children but, in some cases, elderly parents as well; when your career, if you’re lucky enough to have one, is peaking, meaning longer hours and endless responsibilities; when you’ve never had more people depending on you or more people gunning for you (and in some cases, the same people); when you’ve finally acquired a modicum of wisdom, but face the prospect of surrendering any opportunity to use it.