There’s an epidemic of grumpiness that seems to infect men of a certain age; a contagious belief that the world’s gone to hell in a handcart because the young don’t listen to their elders, or that music was better before anyone could dance to it. I’ve met them all: the self-appointed custodians of nostalgia, the grumpy old men who treat progress like a bad smell in the room.
I can’t be one of them. I’d rather be their cheerful antithesis, a man still laughing at his mistakes, still willing to be the fool at the back of the rehearsal room, still saying yes to the daft adventure. Because learning something new keeps you young in a way no cream or collagen injection ever could. It’s oxygen for the spirit.
I learned this most recently, in a very public sphere.
There comes a point, usually somewhere between the first pair of reading glasses and the second knee twinge, when, in my game, you’re referred to as a “veteran broadcaster”. It’s meant kindly, of course. A badge of honour. But “veteran” has that faint whiff of mothballs and memorial services. It suggests someone who’s hung up his microphone and is now polishing his lifetime achievement award. Hint hint….
And despite all this, I found myself at 63, lacing up my new acquired dance shoes for BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. Hardly the behaviour of a man ready for slippers and the expert crossword. If anything, I felt as if I had been smuggled into a party that was a solid reminder of excitement, youth and how to confront your own fears.
Henry Ford once said: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” It’s an idea and principle that has stuck with me my whole life. We all looked through our childhood lens to people – older than 40 years old, as…. old, dusty and rather stuck in their ways. People just cycling through a repetitive life. But then you get there all by yourself.
Strictly, more than any newsroom, studio or red carpet, has taught me that staying young isn’t about holding on to youth. It’s about holding on to curiosity.
The wonderful, humiliating and miraculous thing about learning to dance on live television is that it’s impossible to fake. No amount of experience or lighting can disguise a mis-timed samba. The body tells the truth.
But the mind, ah, the mind is still thrilled by the prospect of discovering something new and feeling the nervous crackle of curiosity being nourished and fuelled by tonnes of fear, doubt and the deafening sounds of: Why?
I think aging has taught me new ways of surrender and conversely new ways to fight and recalibrate or reframe the meaning of the “win”. But the key is to just lean into the fun and full theatricality of everything life throws at you.
Television and journalism trained me to ask questions. Performing taught me how to listen to an audience. But dancing has taught me something altogether different: how to let go. It’s an act of trust in your partner, in your body, and in the experience.
And that, I think, is the great secret to youth. When you stop trying to control every beat, life has a habit of surprising you in the loveliest ways. Especially when the fear of the unknown can be turned into excitement! The challenge for me was just learning the discipline to simply as let go. The “controlled” change is refreshing and stops you becoming stale.
It also takes conscious work to avoid being a grumpy old man. Not something I always master by the way. But, being back in panto after 25 years and returning to playing Buttons, feels like re-visiting an old pal.
Only this time, I think I will be getting as much from the magical cries of laughter and sounds of the audience’s rustling sweetie papers as they will be (hopefully) entertained by us. And yes, we managed to shoehorn a “6-7” reference in there for 2025 (ask your nearest under-16 to explain this)!
Being young, I’ve realised, isn’t about smooth skin or quick feet; it’s about soft edges. The older we get, the easier it is to harden, to calcify into our opinions, our habits, our playlists.
The trick is to stay porous, to let life keep seeping in. Be the sponge, not the stone. To remain relevant and flexible, whilst also knowing and honouring what it is that you enjoy. Understanding what nourishes you and accepting that your experiences – despite what your Instagram “community” might try to tell you – are most likely a unique viewpoint of one person.
So, here’s to learning. To falling over and getting up again. To the next adventure that makes you feel gloriously unqualified. At 63, I don’t feel old; I feel rehearsed, finely tuned by time, but still curious about the next scene.
This week I have been…
Listening… to Gary Neville’s football podcast. Coming from the liner live radio world, podcasts, for me, have always felt a bit odd: everyone insists they’re marvellous.
Football, though—that’s a different matter. That’s been a lifelong passion, a first love with muddy knees. In my teenage years I even toyed with the idea of going professional, until a famously unforgiving manager took one look at me and predicted I’d wear out more mirrors than football boots. Naturally, he was distressingly right. Still, listening to Gary and his cohort reveal the dressing-room secrets is irresistible.
Skiing… And then: Aspen. One of those rare places on earth that looks like it was designed by a very wealthy deity with a serious crush on winter. Four ski mountains, each a masterpiece, and the Little Nell Hotel—posh, pretty, preposterously perfect.
I’ve skied there and eaten there, sometimes with famous friends in tow: Gary Barlow, Gerard Butler, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas. I mention them only to illustrate how easily names roll downhill when gravity is involved.
Be… ing thankful I look back. Over four decades of television, radio, storytelling and the improbable miracle of being able to make a living doing something I adore.Roddie Hood, the maths teacher who let me run school discos and nudged me toward hospital radio. Paul Cooney, who hired a gangly 16-year-old to be Radio Clyde’s Saturday Boy and general dogsbody. Rod Natkiel, who sifted through 3,600 hopefuls and decided I should host Young Krypton.
But above all: family. Elaine, my sister, moral compass and unheralded star, who cared for Mum and Dad with a grace I’ll never repay. And my parents themselves—David and Isabel—my own private pantheon. They handed me everything that truly matters: encouragement, sense, wonder and a love so unconditional you could wrap up the world in it.
Ross King is in Cinderella, at the Cliffs Pavilion in Southend from 13th December to 4th January www. thecliffspavilion.co.uk
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