Mark Radcliffe
"When I was 21 I felt so grown up and thought I knew everything really. I had just graduated from Manchester University and had a big party at the Placemate 7 nightspot with my friend Jamie whose birthday is three days before mine. I also had a tea party at my mum and dad's house in Bolton and have a photograph of me on that day cutting a cake surrounded by all my grandparents who are sadly no longer with us. I wish so much that they could have lived long enough for me to be able to take them out for the day and buy them a meal to repay all the kindnesses they showed me whilst I was growing up.Of course when I look back at my 21 year old self now, I realise how little I really knew of life but that's the joy of the confidence of relative youth. You can enjoy the freedom of not worrying too much about what you are doing before you go and do it. It is said that youth is wasted on the young but I do not think that is right. The very lack of wisdom is what makes it so thrilling. Life will only get more complicated from then on. Would I want to be 21 again? Absolutely.
Am I any wiser now at nearly 52? Only in the sense that I know how little I know and all things being equal, I would prefer to be blissfully unaware of that as I was when I was 21."
