Alan Bennett has reflected on turning 90, describing his astonishment at his age and his feeling that he is ‘not yet grown up’. In a diary entry, the playwright recounts meeting the Queen at a reception for a revamped dolls’ house at Windsor Castle, where he was pushed in a wheelchair and spoke with Her Majesty about libraries.
Bennett writes of the event: ‘HM the Queen appears without being announced, and mingles, chatting, admirable throughout. I am fetched in my wheelchair and told not to stand but this means that HMQ must bend over to speak to me.’ He notes that he forgot formalities such as ‘Your Majesty’ and ‘Ma’am’, and that the Queen mentioned him by name in her speech.
The author also muses on ageing and dependency, describing how his civil partner Rupert Thomas helps him with daily tasks. ‘I’m so looked after these days that sometimes home resembles a five-star hotel,’ he writes, adding that he sometimes does not know whether he has eaten or if it is time for bed.
Bennett confesses: ‘It is absurd to say that I feel I am not yet grown up. I am not laying claim to perpetual youth… What I mean is, there has never come a time when I could be thought to have acquired dignity, common sense, still less worldly wisdom.’ He also quips that the party he would have liked to attend is his own funeral, to see who came and what they said.
