MAYBE it’s because Sting has worn quite well, but it’s never come home to me that a lot of water has passed under the bridge since he was the lead singer of a New Wave rock band – first time around, I mean.

Then, last weekend, I was quite happily listening along to the radio when I Can’t Stand Losing You came on, and I was brought up short by the Other Half saying mournfully: “It’s 30 years, you know. Thirty years since this came out.”

Surely not, I thought. Ten years would make it ’98, 20 would make it ’88….good grief, he’s probably about right.

Thing is, it sounds as fresh and new as it ever did to my ears… and there’s the rub.

How well I remember grudgingly bopping at the youth club in 1975 to the leader’s ex-jukebox copy of High Ho Silver Lining and thinking how ancient it was. Alas, a quick visit to Wikipedia tells me it was released in 1967, a massive eight years before I started boogying.

That’s like the 14-year-olds of today dismissing as old-timers’ music, say, Yellow by some band called Coldplay who had a hit with it back in 2000.

What’s more, having those same 14-year-olds listen to The Police would be like my generation listening to Bill Haley And The Comets.

Except that it wouldn’t. Rock Around the Clock was only 20 years before my time – Wikipedia tells me that to go back 30 years, you’d be talking the Andrews Sisters, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra. In other words, long before rock ’n’roll burst upon the scene.

Does late 1970s music really sound as old, as alien to today’s kids as bobby-soxers’ stuff did to me? Quite probably, yes. If your regular diet is Nelly or 50 Cent, Elvis Costello is probably at least as irrelevant as Elvis Presley.

Ironically, High Ho Silver Lining was back in the charts in 2006. Trouble is, the kids probably think it was written then – just as I thought The Lion Sleeps Tonight was written by Tight Fit.

Thank God, then, for Abba – music that units the generations. It was a guilty pleasure even for the Sex Pistols, whose music was supposed to have swept away all that so-called sickly-sweet pop.

Malcolm MacClaren, manager of the Sex Pistols, has recently revealed that the band’s bassist was a huge, secret fan of the Swedish Fab Four.

And the Sex Pistols even used the chords from Abba’s song S.O.S. as the foundation of their hit, Pretty Vacant.

Children’s TV is similar to popular music in the way it defines the generations. Not having had kids myself, I’m not sure if Oliver Postgate’s death this week would mean much to the average six-year-old.

I don’t suppose many of them would know very much about Noggin The Nog, although that may be just as well. It used to scare me nearly as much as The Singing Ringing Tree when I was young enough to watch such things. From memory, it was in black and white, too, which would probably make it unwatchable for kids today.

I got on better with The Clangers, but I gather this is also a controversial subject, with some people hating it as much as I used to love it. And I’m not sure it’s popular today.

Bagpuss, however, is a different matter. I can’t believe it’s not instantly known and loved by kids of all generations.

How could anyone resist a stripy pink and white cloth cat, some singing mice and a pompous crow?

Yes, Bagpuss is the Abba of the children’s TV world.