OK – so I was a teenager once. Really, I was. And I have to assume that I behaved in a similar way to teenagers everywhere and, most probably like everyone, I remember the especially good bits and the especially bad bits. But the mundane bits – or most of it – slowly got wiped from the storage banks. But as I remember it – even if just the good and bad parts – I am still convinced that I was aware of my surroundings, the people in it and the buzz of everyday life all around me. But there you go – I must be wrong.

During those formative years and being the last child, my parents were in their late forties and early fifties. But like teenagers everywhere, they did, of course, seem ancient to me. And now I have arrived at the mid-fifties point in my life I am staggered to discover that I am invisible to everyone under the age of say, twenty-two or so. Unless their attention is drawn to me for some reason, when their eyes flicker and they suddenly notice me, I do not actually exist. I can walk down the road aiming directly at a gaggle of teenagers walking home from school, and whilst they part to let me through they do not seem to know why they have done so, nor do they witness my passing. I am invisible!

This is especially true of teenage girls. Normally I would be tempted to say that this is because I am an ancient male but as I am invisible then I’m not sure how they can know that. Teenage girls, as is the custom, always walk about in pairs or groups and it is amazing the things they say to each other as they pass which would surely make them blush with embarrassment if they could only see me in that short moment. Younger children can see me and, perhaps more to the point, they can see my two dogs when I am out walking them. By the age of around thirteen however, even the dogs become invisible presumably because they are tethered to me and become a part of my invisibility field.

I do rather think that if I were to cycle alongside a couple of sixteen year old girls wearing nothing but a cycle helmet and singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ at the top of my lungs they still wouldn’t be able to either see or hear me. Not that I’m going to give it a try of course because there are still plenty of older people who can.