Warning...........

When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

by Jenny Joseph

When I am a old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick flowers in other people's gardens and learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat and eat three pounds of sausages at a go or only bread and pickles for a week and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry and pay our rent and not swear in the street and set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practice a little now. So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

(For years I have loved this little poem and for some silly reason I love it just as much today as I did ten years ago when I came across it in a book I purchased.)