I was reading some research recently that had come to the rather depressing conclusion that once we reach 60, our brains go in to reverse. Things expand and improve as we reach adulthood, settle down reasonably well for the next 4 decades, and  then wham bang into reverse at 60.  Learning new stuff and retaining information gets harder and harder.  We oldies might know a lot because we have a lifetime of experience under our belts, but try to add to that knowledge and we will struggle.

This is why youth wins out when it comes to learning complicated new things. Youngsters can absorb and apply in a way that I no longer can.  For me to master a new skill is tremendously hard work, much harder than it is for someone 10 years or even 5 years my junior, and despite all the tricks and strategies that I may bring to bear on any problem, it is just going to get harder with every passing year.

Couple this with the other piece of recent research that confirms that youthful optimism goes into decline at 9 years of age, and it is enough to make one want to stick one's head under the pillow and not bother to try. My brain is declining, however many word games I play to nurture it, and my belief that I can achieve very much has been on a downward slope since before The Beatles split up.

This does not offer much hope for bell ringing success.  Not only have I suffered enough knock backs and failures to convince me that success is unlikely, but there is clear evidence that my brain is on the wane and far less capable of what it might once have managed.

Things can only get worse. Sigh!

I have also been reading research about muscle memory and how you know how to do things without being able to explain how you are doing it – learning to swim, to ride a bike, to handle a bell, to crochet a granny square. We practise a new skill until the moment when we finally "understand" it, feel it, if you like.  It appears as if the memory is stored in our muscles, as if they are remembering how to perform an action, but in reality the action is happening in our brains. The parts of the brain responsible for the movement develop stronger connections between neurons that serve as a representation of the motion and these connections make the memory better and easier to access. It may feel as if the muscles are doing it on automatic pilot, but it is the brain that is working hard because the movements are securely mapped.  This creates a shorthand between thinking and doing and allows the task to be performed with little or no conscious effort.  Until this is achieved, whatever it is that you are trying to learn cannot happen automatically. And until some things happen automatically it is a bit of a waste of time trying to introduce new elements, such as remembering a pattern of numbers to apply when ringing a tower bell, because the brain is busy on more mundane stuff such as where is my body at any given moment. As it receives signals about the length of each muscle and the angle of each joint it is frantically engaged in mental trigonometry  trying to work out what is going on. It can't also be worrying whether to dodge or make a place.

I believe that is a huge part of my problem as a tower bell ringer – it still requires conscious effort for me to handle a bell. People try to be encouraging and say that, with sufficient practice, it will come,. One day, all the theory that I have acquired can be put into practice but I am no longer 9 years old and I find it hard to believe them.

It is not all bad news. There is a mastery that comes with maturity. It may take us longer to learn how to use a new piece of equipment, but once grasped, we oldies make fewer mistakes. We enjoy better impulse control, better judgement and have superior problem solving skills. We need them because we are continually bumping up against new problems, such as how do I manage to put on my socks when my back appears to be unbendable?

Give us enough time and we may eventually sort things out, even if by then we can no longer get up the tower stairs and, some days, remain sockless.