There are certain things in our lives that are important, yet we only think about them if someone else comments on them.
A classic example is glasses, or spectacles if you prefer.
When you first get them you notice how they press on the bridge of your nose, or how they lie along your ears.
It only takes a couple of days to get used to them and within a week you won’t even think once about them.
You are more likely to find your wallet at home, if it isn’t in your pocket, than you are to find your glasses, having only put them down a minute before.
You only really notice them if someone sees you wearing them for the first time, and comments on them.
I started wearing glasses when I was about 17 and studying at Kelsterton College in North Wales. I started one term at the back of the class, when all your classmates are teenage girls you don’t choose to sit at the front. By the end of the term I had moved gradually to the front, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to see the blackboard.
The crunch came when I was at the Flint railway station heading for home.
It was a two-track railway line and I was standing opposite the station sign, a large purple sign with large letters spelling out the station name: FLINT.
To me it was a blurred purple with some fuzzy white blotches.
When I got home local businesses were closed but I asked my mother to make an appointment at the optician’ for the following Saturday morning.
When I did get the spectacles back the first thing I noticed was that everything was clear again.
The second thing I noticed was that the glasses were the same as those worn by Michael Caine in the Harry Palmer spy movies.
Since that time I have had plain black frames, wire frames, contact lenses, prescription sunglasses, varifocals, the plain glasses that go dark in sunlight, and so many more in the last 56 years.
Guess what my latest glasses are – a very chic pair of black-framed spectacles.
“My name is Michael Caine – not a lot of people know that.”
Robin's Nest 