GETTING old is hard work. But I’m doing my best to hold back the tide. At the start of 2013, the year of my silver wedding, I set out to get fit. More than that – I wanted to be irresistible to my wife by the time we embarked on our anniversary cruise in the summer.

I joined the gym and started going nearly daily: running on the treadmill, shedding calories on the crosstrainer, and toning up my 51-year-old body with a variety of weights.

Back in January, while enduring one of these tortuous fitness sessions, I watched in awe as a young lad, probably in his early 20s, hung impressively on the overhead bars and pulled himself up to chin-level 20 times.

Envious of his biceps, I decided to give it a go. I grabbed the bars with both hands and dangled. And dangled.

And dangled.

Believe me, I tried to pull myself up to chin-level, but I couldn’t move.

With a few sniggers overheard behind my back, I had no choice but to drop down and rub my shoulder to feign injury.

It was embarrassing, but I’m nothing if not determined and I vowed at that moment to work on my pull-ups.

More than nine months later, I’ve progressed to the point where I can do four pull-ups – five if I don’t drop all the way down.

Last week, sweating profusely after 15 minutes on the treadmill, I was in the gym and making my way across to the overhead bars. A young man – not the same one – went to use the equipment at the same time.

“You go first,” I said, politely standing aside.

“No, it’s okay, mate,” he replied, “you can go.”

“I won’t keep you long,” I assured him. “I can only do four pull-ups.”

He looked at me, smiled, and said: “To be fair, I don’t think I’ll be able to do four when I’m an old man.”

His words echoed around my brain. Did I really hear what I thought I’d heard?

“Sorry, what did you say?” I asked.

“Fair play to you, mate,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be up to doing four when I’m an old man.”

I waited for a sign that he was joking, but none came. He meant it. He was trying to be nice.

“I’m not an old man – I’m 51, you cheeky sod,” I said.

He shrugged, jumped up onto the bars, and started going up and down like a well-oiled piston engine.

I went for a shower and was fastening my shoelaces when he came into the changing room.

“I’m only 51, you know,” I repeated.

“Good on ya, mate,” he replied, in a way which suggested he thought it miraculous that I was still active.

What happened next served to pour a large dose of salt on the wounds. He was sweating from his workout, his T-shirt was clinging to him, and he couldn’t get it over his head. He turned to face me, bent forward, held out out his arms, and said: “Do me a favour, mate, give us a hand getting this off.”

I looked at him in disbelief and weighed up the irony of the request.

This impudent young whipper-snapper had dismissed me as an old duffer and now he had the nerve to ask me to undress him.

“Of course, just give me a second,”

I replied. And then I walked out, leaving him in the dark.

The things they say

IN my last column, I told the story of the little boy who came home from his first day at school to announce he’d had “tea-bag meat” for dinner.

It prompted an email from Judy Watson, of Northallerton, telling how her youngest son, Lee, had come home from his first day at school and declared he wasn’t very impressed with his dinner.

He insisted he hadn’t had any meat and the gravy served with the vegetables had horrible lumps in it.

For dessert, he’d had corned beef and custard.

It turned out he’d had meatballs, followed by rhubarb and custard.