Life’s scoreboard Hugo Vickers compares his achievements with those of John Lennon, the Queen – and Matt Hancock
SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG PHOTO / ALAMY
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t my age, I have lived through a great number of ideas being rejected. Agents, publishers and booksellers conspire to ensure that books of mine do not reach the reading public. My redoubtable agent, Gillon Aitken, refused to represent my book that became The Quest for Queen Mary. He said I knew too much about obscure German royalty and advised me to cut the footnotes. The book languished for ten years in the drawer until Tom Perrin at Zuleika took a punt on 100 hardbacks, and Hodder took it up – and now, in one form or another, it has sold over 40,000 copies. Another idea that bit the dust was Milestones – a perfect book for the millennium. It was conceived, some research was done and it should have been published in 1999. It is a simple concept. Perhaps it should be an app, not a book. You plot your life against those of others. The project is designed to disconcert. Everyone starts at the same point, 0.0. If you die aged 90 years and six months, that is 90.6 (years, then months). You progress through each year, regardless of the century, decade or year. Against yourself, you mark the careers of other people – and you fail. Pitt the Younger was 24 when he became Prime Minister – he was born towards the end of May 1759 and assumed office in December 1783. That is fed in at 24.7. He died aged 46 in January 1806 – so 46.8. The Duke of Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo at the age of 46. You can insert anyone you like into the system. You soon find that you are hopeless – way behind everyone else in the path of life. But if you keep going, you begin to outlive all kinds of people and realise that you have been given more time to enjoy life on earth than all sorts of great achievers. For the present purposes, I have mapped some of my own moments 32 The Oldie January 2022
(under the initials HV), for better or worse. As ever, this is a work in progress. Many more can be added to the template. 0.0 Hugo Vickers born (1951) – like all the others 5.0 Aashman Taneja wins a gold medal in taekwondo (2020) 13.1 Ruth Lawrence goes up to St Hugh’s College, Oxford (1983) 15.8 Greta Thunberg becomes a famous environmental activist (2018) 15.11 Greta Thunberg addresses the United Nations (2018) 17.0 HV meets the Queen and the Queen Mother (1968) 17.5 Boris Becker wins grand-slam singles at Wimbledon (1985) 17.2 Jude Bellingham becomes the youngest football player to represent England (2020) 17.3 Malala Yousafzai is the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner (2014) 18.5 Christine Keeler meets John Profumo (1961) 19.3 John Lennon creates the Beatles (1960) 19.1 HV becomes a Lay Steward at St George’s Chapel, Windsor (1970) 20.1 Lady Diana Spencer marries the Prince of Wales (1981) 21.9 Barry Humphries creates Edna Everage (1955) 22.7 Garry Kasparov becomes the youngest-ever world champion in chess (1985) 24.6 Pitt the Younger becomes Prime Minister (1783) 25.4 Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen (1952) 25.6 Monet first exhibits at the Salon (1866) 25.11 HV’s first book published (1977) 26.1 Vivien Leigh wins her Oscar for Gone with the Wind (1939) 33.8 HV’s book on Cecil Beaton published (1985) 34.0 Margaret Thatcher elected as MP (1959) 36.2 Marilyn Monroe dies (1962)
36.2 Diana, Princess of Wales, is killed in a car crash (1997) 40.4 HV’s mother dies (1992) 40.10 HV’s father dies (1992) 42.3 Proust publishes first volume of À La Recherche du Temps Perdu (1913) 42.5 Edward VIII abdicates (1936) 42.8 Matt Hancock resigns as Health Secretary after his snog (2021) 43.8 John F Kennedy becomes 35th President of the USA (1961) 43.10 HV is married (1995) 43.11 Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister (1997) 44.3 Adolf Hitler becomes Führer and Chancellor of the Third Reich (1934) 45.6 President Kennedy is assassinated (1963) 46.1 The Duke of Wellington wins the Battle of Waterloo (1815) 46.5 Bill Clinton becomes 42nd President of the USA (1993) 46.6 Pitt the Younger dies (1806) 47.4 HV’s first son born (1999) 48.5 John Profumo resigns (1963) 53.7 Vivien Leigh dies (1967) 54.0 Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman Prime Minister (1979) 55.9 Chairman Mao establishes the People’s Republic of China (1949) 56.2 George VI dies (1952) 71.6 Princess Margaret dies (2002) 80.2 Anthony Quinn fathers another child (1996) 94.11 The Queen is widowed (2021) 99.10 Prince Philip dies (2021) 99.11 Captain Sir Tom Moore releases his single (2020) 100.0 Many celebrate their centenaries 100.9 Captain Sir Tom Moore dies (2021) 101.5 The Queen Mother dies (2002) 102.9 Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, dies (2004) 103.3 Dame Vera Lynn dies (2020) 122.5 Madame Jeanne Calment dies (1997). She is the oldest known human – a target we can all aim for, however great our other failures!
