Michael Harding: I considered myself youthful until a pregnant woman stood up in a tram and offered me her seat

Being ill is like forgetting who you were; you get lost in a forest of unease and it’s difficult to remember life before the catastrophe. Fortunately I seem to be emerging from the forest. For three months I could see only fog in my left eye. But thanks to a surgical procedure I can gaze at flowers once again with both eyes. Which is a little miracle.

I feel so good I’m even trying to reinvent myself. Last week I did a gig in Dublin with some amazingly talented young artists. The singer AE Mak was on the bill, and just before my spot she gave a stunning rendition of Chelsea Hotel.

I had prepared a monologue about a rural bachelor but by the time AE Mak had dazzled the audience I realised my whinging recitation would be out of place. So I sang The Rocks of Bawn instead; a ballad suitable enough for Methuselah. It is the dirge of a clearly depressed male singing about another depressed male. But people love it. So I gripped the microphone fearlessly and gave it socks.

When I got the bus pass a few years ago I still paid bus fares, because I didn’t want anyone to think I was old. I considered myself youthful until a pregnant woman stood up in a tram one day and offered me her seat.

But I don’t hide my seniority any longer; nowadays I wear a paddy cap and flaunt it.

I wasn’t even embarrassed last week when a neighbour drove me to Galway for a check-up with the ophthalmic surgeon – the eye doctor, as we used to say. Although my neighbour drove erratically, alternating her foot between the accelerator and the brake every 15 seconds.

It was a hybrid Toyota and she was trying to stay in electric mode to save petrol. I was worried I might need neck surgery by the time we reached Galway.

“Do you not realise I have a detached retina?” says I. “If you continue taking your foot on and off the pedal my eye is liable to fly out and hit the windscreen.”

In the clinic I sat in a waiting area watching the war in Ukraine on TV. The old people around me discussed the dreadful weather while the young ones remained aloof, their fingers glued to dainty keyboards on mobile phones.

“It’s the cuckoo’s fault,” an old man declared.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The storm,” he explained. “There’s always a spell of rough weather this time of year. My mother used to say it was nature taking revenge on the cuckoo.”

I thanked him for the information and secretly regretted I hadn’t brought my ear phones. But at least the prognosis from the doctor was good: the retina was healing.

So I suggested to my driver that we go shopping in the city to celebrate. She agreed and while she headed off to the big stores, I slipped down the side streets in search of vintage clothes.

I was fingering my way through tweed jackets to see if I could find a large size when a man stumbled into the shop as if he had been wrestling with some addictive demon.

He headed for the crockery and second-hand books. His boney fingers slithered along a shelf and I feared he might knock everything down. The shop attendant noted his confusion and got up-close behind him.

His ivory fingers reached out and clutched a candle, as if it were an anchor in a storm and he was an unmoored boat.

“What’s this?” he wondered, not recognising the object.

“It’s a candle,” the shop assistant said from behind.

He couldn’t comprehend where he was, never mind what was on the shelf. He may even have been uncertain as to where the other voice was coming from.

“A candle?” he whispered, still holding it, as if it were liable to jump into the air.

“A smelly candle,” she said, lightening the moment.

“Ah right,” he exclaimed, because now he understood. And he held it as if he were remembering some long ago country where he was happy or innocent or at peace.

“That’s right,” he mumbled, smiling. “A smelly candle.”

It struck me that there must have been a time when he was safe and secure; a single day when a fragrant candle flickered before him in some room that he had long ago forgotten. But I looked away because I didn’t want to appear as if I was staring.