Emma Soames
Like other good definitions I kick myself that I didn’t think of it myself as I instantly know what – and more importantly who – Groovy Old Men are. And Baker has written a whole book about the breed (Icon Books, £12.99).
At home with modern technology, at ease with contemporary brands, books and bands and as keen on a pair of Converse All Stars as any Jumping Jack Flash a quarter their age, Groovy Old Men have utterly failed to age. But there is more to them than artfully cut chinos and a well-stocked iPod. Above all, Groovy Old Men have maintained a youthful curiosity that keeps them as excited by modern culture – particularly music – as they ever were when they first discovered, say, the blues around the time they did their National Service.
According to Baker, the 1960 Beaulieu jazz festival when trads and modernists first squared up, was a seminal moment in the cultural marinade that makes old men groovy. But there are many GOMs coming through now, to whom an early Glastonbury (1971), or the Grosvenor Square protest (1968) had the same effect. If women can gatecrash grooviness, my seminal moment would have been learning how to make a Molotov cocktail in Paris in 1968.
With our attitudes to the ageing process changing so radically, the GOMS will inevitably be on the increase. We also have the luck to be living at a time when the generation gap is shrinking and grooviness is no longer regarded as the territory of the young – just as well since we are talking about the generation that invented it.
Baker identifies Sir Paul Smith as the ultimate GOM. My nominations would include Nicky Haslam, who as I write is planning to celebrate his 70th birthday early with a black, silver and purple party for 800 people; actor John Standing, 74, who has more friendship bracelets than any of his three stylish children and the Lib Dem hero Vince Cable, who seems to be the only politician who understands the economy – and he knows how to dance.
To get to the nitty-gritty, are you a GOM? Are you married to one? Go to the Saga website and you will find a further explanation by Nick Baker and a quiz which will measure your all-singing, all-dancing grooviness.
Very few companies without a death wish have used the word Granny in their name since Granny Takes a Trip closed in the late Sixties. Even then the title was, of course, ironic, probably one conceived in the same haze that wafted from Granny’s doors on the Kings Road during its short but influential life.
But now grannies have become recognised and desirable consumers. Not only do they control a huge chunk of the UK’s private wealth, but they now increasingly get to this stage of life with a professional confidence born of years in the workplace and a lifetime of having their wishes as consumers granted. This is a powerful combination and when these new grannies find a gap in the market they are apt to fill it themselves – hence the recent birth of the Granny Looks newsletter and the Good Granny Guide.
Into the same arena now bounds Fran Yorke, grandmother of four under four, with her beautifully simple website Granny Takes a Grip. It is quite possible, indeed probable, that the same people who hung out at Granny Takes a Trip may now be looking for a grandparent-friendly pushchair, for a cot that is light and easy to put together and all the mysterious stuff that the hands-on grandparent suddenly needs when grandchildren are flung at her by dual-income dependent children.
When Fran did her research she found that one in five grandmothers look after grandchildren for more than 40 hours a week. You would have thought this fact might interest retailers selling mainly to those who care for small children. But no, so Granny Yorke is filling that gap.
“Our mantra is hands, knees, backs. We road test everything and sell nothing too tricky to fold or too heavy.”
As well as being very focused, what is interesting about these businesses is that they are all primarily websites. At the helm of every one are grannies who mean business, finding solutions to problems that life has flung at them, quite possibly making a tidy living in the process. All power to their cradle-rocking elbows. www.grannytakesagrip.com
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This article was first published in Saga Magazine, November 2008.