Happy Endings retirement living

When I read to an audience a fictional piece I had written about the Happy Endings Retirement Village, the name got a laugh. So did my description of 80 year old women, stringy and brown from endless Pilates classes and tanning sessions. But it's no joke.
Writing in a Sunday supplement Fred Redwood tells of a retirement development called Memory Lanes and of the "lively programmes...about interaction and stimulation, not leaving people to sleep through their days." I'm an advocate of not writing people off as too old to do interesting things, too early, but sometimes it concerns me as well that there could be pressure in the other direction. Maybe some of us just want to take it easy after a lifetime of work, and should not be made to feel guilty about it?
Talking of guilt, the same article quotes a property analyst reporting that few elderly people downsize their homes. The suggestion is that they should be prepared to do so for the benefit of younger people. Link this to the idea that elderly people need a lot of medical care that could otherwise be used for the problems of the young, and we are on a slippery slope.
Every life, young or old, is as important as any other. If the old want to rattle around in large properties rather than cram their possessions into a studio flat, we should let them.

Heather Hosking

Swimming with Stanley

In spite of Bryan Appleyard's exhortations to us baby boomers to grow up, I am still working hard at staying young. I try to swim for an hour at least once a week. I have a great role model in Stanley Grenville whom I meet at the Carn Brea Leisure Centre. He is 80 and still swims 100 lengths every day.

Heather Hosking

Juliet and her Romeo

In an adaptation of Shakespeare's play opening at the Bristol Old Vic on 10 March Sian Phillips (aged 76) plays Juliet, and Michael Byrne (66) is Romeo, but they are playing characters in their 80's.
"There's no reason why falling in love at the age of 80 should be any different from falling in love at the age of 15" the director Tom Morris said in an interview with Bryan Appleyard of The Sunday Times.
The play needed very little adaptation, and with the senior citizen lovers it is their children who get in the way, not parents.
Other productions featuring the subject of ageing or the old are Kontakthof at the Barbican with dancers over the age of 65, a play at the National Theatre - "Really old, Like Forty five", artist Louise Bourgeois exhibiting her work around the world at 98, and Judi Dench (75) playing Titania in a new Peter Hall (he's 80) production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
In his excellent article Bryan Appleyard bemoans the fact that the world at large and the baby boomer generation in particular are obsessed with staying young. He concludes by suggesting that it is "Time to grow up."

Heather Hosking

Germany's magic formula

The items about ageing come thick and fast, proving, as if I did not know this already, that it is a very hot topic. Here is an interesting article from Spiegel Online and another from Times Online about the approach of Germany and particularly BMW, to an ageing workforce.

Heather Hosking

The insidious triumph of the facelifting classes

The heading of this post is the title of an article by Minette Marrin, a columnist on The Sunday Times. She points out that no matter how vigorously people like Emma Soames of Saga claim that women of 50+ are having a fantastically improved time, there is no escaping sexist ageism. Unless women look young, they will not be treated as young, and there is growing pressure to 'have work done' to keep that youthful appearance. Minette says that the idea of growing old gracefully is going out of fashion and that this is not something to celebrate.

I think most 50+ women manage to avoid looking quite so 'thin-lipped,slack-eyed,and grey-haired' as the image Minette conjures up, without surgery and major expenditure, but agree that there is unfair pressure. It begins with "to colour or not to colour?"

Heather Hosking

Terry Pratchett

I have been intending to begin this blog for months, but is only today that I finally made a start. I have been prompted by hearing what successful author, Terry Pratchett, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, intends to say in his BBC Dimbleby Lecture. He will advocate the creation of tribunals to which individuals wishing to determine when their lives shall end, and their families, can apply for approval.
An aunt of mine, who suffered a stroke, but lived for another year, during which she was immobile, and could not care for herself, would have agreed with him. She questioned constantly why she was being kept alive simply so that she could suffer all manner of indignities.

Heather Hosking