Frankly, not too old for sex

IS it possible to write about getting older and not mention sex?

IS it possible to write about getting older and not mention sex?

The columnist Frank Devine didn't think so.

Indeed, he gets stuck into sex in the introduction to his new collection of essays, published posthumously yesterday.

Devine assures those concerned about such things that yes, it's true, you won't be as supple as you used to be. But, as he puts it, you adjust.

"Once you have been a participant in the greatest game, its genial aura never leaves you," he writes.

Even so, there will be times "when the thought replaces rather than precedes the deed".

Devine's humorous observations on this and other aspects of ageing have been published under the title Older and Wiser by Quadrant Books. The collection was launched last night by former prime minister John Howard at Quadrant's new headquarters in (of all places) Sydney's inner-west Balmain.

Devine was an editor of The Australian, and later a columnist. He retired as a "day labourer" at 70, intending to write "regular reports on what it's like to be old", to appear in Quadrant and elsewhere. He goofed off until he was 75, and then died in July this year, aged 77, and the book is replete with observations on age and other things. As the editor-in-chief of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, says in the credits, Devine was "a brilliant writer who brought a worldwide view to editing, and happily disrespected all the pieties of Australian life".

Devine writes about his cancer treatment, about being home alone when his wife was in hospital, long-term marriage, and the proper attire for a man of his age. Then, too, there is his discussion of death, "a contract one becomes party to at birth". He notes that "old people have had plenty of time to get used to it".

The insider's view of such things is particularly rare. Devine wonders if "intending memoirists may have been struck down by misfortune on their way to the writing room, and others, having logged on, may have forgotten why they didso".

Perhaps there is "widespread reluctance about confessing to no longer being what one was?"

On the other hand, Devine relished the "freedom to design each day" to his own taste. This was, he said, a "rich prize". The book is too.