The long & the short: Being tall ...

My own tale on life is I’m quite tall. At my school I was pretty much the tallest in the school, towering over my classmates. I thought I’d almost never stop growing until I was matching someone of David Prowse’ (played Darth Vader) or Peter Mayhew’s (played Chewbacca) stature.

Fortunately I kind of bottomed out at 6’4”, which is quite big enough to realise you’re sufficiently taller than the average to cause a few problems, and God help those who are grow any higher!

So what are the problems?

Well first of all clothes. Everything is just a bit bigger, you need bigger shoes, you have to make sure your trousers aren’t half mast because the leg is too short, and have a shirt which doesn’t make your arms look like they’re dangling around like a Gorilla because the cuffs are half way up your forearm.

And heaven help you if on top of all this you need to lose a few pounds (erm like me)! You tend to be driven to buy what fits rather than “wow I like that”. A friend at University was a giant, and I once saw his wardrobe once, which contained a dozen replica outfits – “I tend to find clothes my size and buy a dozen of the same thing” he told me.

Legroom. You have longer legs. This means the economy seating in aeroplanes which is cramped for the average person is just unbearable. Headroom too is impossible. On a flight from Scotland I was huddled and twisted trying to fit into my seat – thankfully it was just over an hour in that Hell. Likewise the first thing I think when looking for a car is how far back the seats can go, and how much legroom there is.

Beds. Even for me they don’t make beds or sheets long enough – so my legs tend to dangle over the end a lot (and we have a kingsize bed). It’s probably one of the reasons I find it so comfortable to sleep on the floor sometimes.

Watch your head! Yeah bundle of laughs this. The modern submarine or warship that I’ve had to visit occasionally whilst it was in dock is ideally built for a man sized 5’ 10”. You start the day ducking through every bulkhead, but as time drags on, eventually you forget to duck and then - believe me - it really hurts!

The cinema. Actually being tall is an advantage in the cinema as you see really well. But when you have to sit in front of someone there is a terrible sigh behind you as they take your height personally…


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