The Illustration of Grannies.

I have two tattoos, so this isn’t an anti-tattoo article.

In fact, I didn’t get my first tattoo until I was 40. I got my second at 46, so I wasn’t some impulsive teenager who wandered into a tattoo parlour after three Bacardi Breezers and woke up with a dolphin on her arse.

I was a fully grown woman. I knew exactly what I was doing.

Mine are discreetly positioned where nobody is going to see them unless specifically invited, and applications for that particular viewing experience are currently closed.

But on holiday in Greece recently, I kept seeing something I couldn’t stop looking at.

Grannies with enormous tattoos.

And I don’t mean cool, silver-haired women in linen and statement glasses who looked as though they’d been collecting body art since Glastonbury 1978. I mean proper grannies. Crimplene. Sensible sandals. Mobility scooters. And what appeared to be half a newly illustrated calf.

My immediate, mature, open-minded response was:

What the fuck?

Now, before anyone starts sharpening their pitchfork, I know.

Their body. Their choice.

Absolutely.

But presumably that also means my eyes, my opinion.

Because here’s the thing about having a six-foot peacock tattooed across your back: you’re not looking at it. I am. You’ve essentially turned yourself into public art and then told the public they’re not allowed to have an opinion.

I’m not sure that’s how art works.

And yes, I’m being judgemental.

Not slightly judgemental. Not quietly wondering about their motivation while respecting their journey.

I’m judging it.

I think some of these enormous tattoos look fucking horrible.

There. I’ve said it.

It’s not actually about being old

I’m 62. Ageing doesn’t particularly bother me.

I’ve happily started my grey blending in the last six months, largely because my hairdresser daughter told me I wasn’t allowed any more bleach. I have wrinkles. I have cellulite. I have stretch marks. Gravity and I are no longer on particularly friendly terms.

I don’t look 25 because I’m not 25.

I’m not desperately trying to look 38 either.

I put my eyebrows on every morning because without them I look vaguely unfinished, possibly recently deceased. I wear a bit of light makeup because I prefer my face with it on. None of this is an attempt to fool the general public into thinking a woman born in the 1960s has somehow slipped through the ageing process unnoticed.

I’m actually quite comfortable with the whole thing.

I accept every lump, line, wrinkle, droop and wobble. I’m just not fucking outlining them.

Which is perhaps why the enormous-new-tattoo-on-an-older-woman thing baffles me so much.

Because apparently there are women my age and older looking at precisely the same ageing equipment I’ve got and thinking:

You know what this needs?

A fucking dragon.

Or a koi carp.

Perhaps a large butterfly winding its way around the calf.

And I don’t understand it.

I don’t particularly like massive tattoos on young people either

This is important.

I’m not wandering around admiring 25-year-olds covered from shoulder to wrist in ink and then clutching my pearls when a 70-year-old does it.

Massive tattoos aren’t really my thing on anyone.

Don’t get me wrong, some of the artwork is incredible, but I look at some of the full sleeves, enormous leg pieces and facial tattoos younger people have now and think: That’s going to be interesting in forty years. However… I understand it more when you’re young.

At 22, you’re not necessarily thinking about what your upper arm will look like at 72. Why would you be? Seventy-two might as well be the Jurassic period.

You’re looking at your current skin, your current body, your current taste and making a permanent decision based on all three.

Possibly not wise, but understandable.

What baffles me is deciding to start covering huge areas of your body when the forty-years-later bit has already arrived.

You’ve got the evidence right there.

I remember older men when I was growing up, particularly men who’d been in the services or worked in certain trades, with one or two old tattoos on their arms.

By the time I saw them, those tattoos had often faded into slightly grey-green shapes. Skin had changed. Arms had changed. The tattoo had changed with them.

Nothing wrong with any of that. That’s what bodies do.

But it didn’t make me look at them and think:

More. What that arm needs is significantly more ink.

And yet clearly other people look at ageing skin and reach a completely different conclusion.

Fair enough.

Still don’t fucking get it.

Maybe this is where acceptance gets confused with approval

There’s a peculiar idea now that accepting somebody’s right to do something means you also have to admire the result.

I don’t.

A woman of 75 has exactly as much right to cover both arms in roses, wolves and inspirational quotations as a woman of 25.

She doesn’t need my permission.

Thankfully, because she’s not getting it.

But I can completely support her right to do it while sitting three sunbeds away thinking:

Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t have fucking done that.

Those two thoughts can exist perfectly happily together.

I don’t want women to disappear as they get older. I don’t think we should dress quietly, behave ourselves, cut our hair short and retreat politely into the background.

Quite the opposite.

Wear the leopard print. Have long grey hair. Wear the bikini. Put your lipstick on. Don’t put your lipstick on. Wear enormous glasses. Wear fuck-all makeup. Dye your hair purple if you’ve always fancied it.

And yes, get the tattoo if that’s what you want.

I reserve the right to think it’s hideous.

Because acceptance isn’t surrendering your taste.

Perhaps I’m the contradictory one

This is the bit I find interesting.

Why am I more forgiving of a 22-year-old making an enormous permanent decision without considering what it might look like at 72 than I am of the 72-year-old making exactly the same decision while already inhabiting the body I’m imagining?

Logically, the older woman probably has the stronger case.

She’s had decades to work out who she is. She’s less likely to give a shit what anyone thinks. Maybe she’s always wanted the bloody dragon and has finally decided there’s no point dying without it.

There is something rather admirable about that.

I still don’t want the dragon.

Perhaps that’s the whole answer.

There doesn’t have to be a neat moral at the end of every opinion.

I can believe women should be free to do whatever they like with their own bodies.

I can be completely comfortable with my own ageing body.

I can understand that another woman might celebrate hers differently.

And I can still look across a Greek hotel terrace, see a newly tattooed granny in sensible sandals and think:

What the fuck have you done to your leg?

Her body.

Her tattoo.

Her choice.

My Digital Eyebrow.

Also my choice.

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