"Time is not the same at every age. When a person is a child there is an enormous length of time between one Christmas or one birthday and another. When waiting for a much-looked-forward-to occasion time positively creeps. But time is not like that for grown ups. Little by little it goes faster and faster until for the old it behaves like a concertina, it closes up until one Christmas is so close to another that it feels as if even while the present Christmas is being enjoyed - the next could be touched with an outstretched hand."
- Noel Streatfeild, 1966