I need a new ID photo...

Or should that be a new face?

I think a lot of us are guilty of this. Of viewing ‘old people’ things in a certain light. Things like bingo, American tan hosiery and those plastic rain hats that fold up tiny. And the bus pass, as we have in Scotland. The over 60s travelcard which means free bus travel all over the country.

Ah, look at those old people with their bus passes, I used to think. Sweet old dears trundling off to the seaside for a cup of tea!

I’m not being patronising about bus pass holders now - because I am one. At least I will be when I have a photo done.

Is anything more soul sapping than the passport-type photo experience? It caused issues, even when I was young. For ten years I put up with being told I looked like punk Mary from EastEnders. At around that time I was in charge of the letters page on teen magazine Just Seventeen, on which a similarly unflattering picture was used.

A reader wrote in, saying, ‘You look like Mark King out of Level 42.’ Obviously this was the look I’d been aiming for.

Actually I CAN see the resemblance

Maybe I shouldn’t even bother with a bus pass? I mean, I never use local busses. I know that sounds grand, like I travel only by ermine-lined sedan chair - but what I mean is I walk, cycle and take the train and subway around our home city of Glasgow. But then I do take the bus with Dad, when we attend his medical appointments. We’re forever trundling around Ayrshire and he always flashes his free pass and I experience a tiny stab of envy every time.

Imagine, being able to waltz right onto the bus and do that! Growing older is no joke, but there must be some compensation for the hairs that now spring from my face - wiry black things, sturdy as a lamp flex - and the way a nice sauvignon now makes me sweat like a racehorse during the night.

And my inability to hold onto information. That’s irritating, the way we become less ‘sharp’ as we age. (I saw ‘we’ but presumably not everyone’s brain is decaying like mine is?). I find myself trying to rub dirt off my laptop screen when it’s a rogue full stop. And saying, ‘Someone mentioned this brilliant TV series, not a drama but a real thing about an actual person.’

Jimmy gives me a look. ‘You mean a documentary?’

‘Yes! That’s it.’

‘What about?’

‘A real thing that happened.’

??

‘Hang on, let me look…’ I check Facebook for the original thread but I can’t find it because - obviously - I can’t remember who posted it in the first place.

It’s crap really - this fugginess of brain. But I knew there must be a payoff and here it is in the form of free travel! Better get the photo done.

What I really want is something like this.

As that’s clearly not possible I rummage through my selfies, ignoring the criteria laid out very clearly on the application website:

If you’re using a photo taken on your own device, include your head, shoulders and upper body. Do not crop your photo - it will be done for you.

In your photo you must:

• be facing forwards and looking straight at the camera

• have a plain expression and your mouth closed

• not have hair in front of your eyes

What is a ‘plain expression?’ Is it the look you give when:

You open the bread bin to discover just the crust left, speckled with mould?

You’re trapped on the sofa with a relative who’s detailing every single event that led up to the outbreak of war in 1939?

A bird poops on your shoe?

When they say ‘plain’ do they mean ‘mildly pissed off’ or ‘disgusted with life but trying to be sanguine about it?’

I rake through my pictures. In the only that’s actually decent, I am three-quarters to camera and grinning and my hair is flapping all over my face.

It doesn’t meet the criteria in any way whatsoever, apart from being of a human head. But sod it - they deal with hundreds of these things every day. They won’t notice.

Two weeks later this email comes back.

So I head to a nearby shop that sells DIY tools and cheap glittery make-up that only the brave or foolhardy would apply to their skin. They also sell fireworks, which they have stored illegally in the cavity above the shop’s ceiling (the shop guy was done for this). I know - I shouldn’t support organised crime. But there’s also a wonky handwritten sign stuck outside that says ‘we do passport photo’.

I pop in and say, ‘Hi, you do photos don’t you?’

‘For old person’s bus pass?’ the man says.

This knocks the wind right out of me. Before I went in, I’d imagined him looking incredulous. YOU’RE OLD ENOUGH FOR A BUS PASS? I pictured him having to sit down in shock - not jumping to conclusions about what I’m in for.

With a ‘plain expression’ I follow him through to a tiny curtained off area at the back of the shop. There’s a sink, a few buckets and a shabby old chair. He takes the picture with his little camera and it’s hideous. I don’t even say this in a modest way. It’s the worse photo (not of me, of anyone) I have ever seen.

‘Okay?’ he asks.

What can I say? Asking, ‘Could you soften the lighting a bit?’ would be as futile as telling a teenager to put a coat on.

But what did I expect? He’s not Mario Testino, he’s Mr Illegal Fireworks Guy (that’s what we always call him - ‘We needs some WD40. I’m going to see if Mr Illegal Fireworks Guy has some’). And I realise now that my mistake was going to get the photo done on a day when I thought I looked quite nice.

Go on a day when you think you look terrible and you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.

He prints out the photos and chops them up into four separate pics. When I ask if he could email the photo to me, as I’d like a digital one, he looks shocked. So he’s not just Mr Illegal Fireworks Guy. He’s Mr Illegal Fireworks Guy in 1982.

‘Ten pounds please!’ he barks at me.

I reapply with the terrible photo and of course they like this one.

But when my bus pass arrives, I feel whole lot better because the picture is so tiny and smudgy it could be anyone.

It could be Mark King out of Level 42.

Love,

Fiona xx

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