Notes
Chapter 1
1 House of Lords Science and Technology Committee (2005), Ageing: Scientific Aspects.
2 Jill Sherman (2007), ‘Wealthy, healthy, and aged 85: the woman living ever longer’, Times, 25 Oct.
3 Daily Mail (2006), 8 Feb.
4 Guardian (2006), 8 Feb.
5 Ibid.
6 Geraldine Bedell (2005), ‘The third agers’, Observer, 30 Oct.
7 Stephen Moss (2006), ‘Life at 100’, Guardian, 18 Jan.
8 Ibid.
9 Mary Riddell (2006), ‘Longer lifespans are a bit of a grey area’, Observer, 12 Feb.
10 Ibid.
11 Diana Athill (2007), Somewhere Towards the End, London, p. 125.
12 A.Bowling and P. Dieppe (2005), ‘What is successful ageing and who should define it?’, BMJ, 331: pp. 1548–51 (24 Dec).
13 J.W. Rowe and R.L. Kahn (1998), Successful Ageing, New York, Pantheon Books.
14 W.J. Strawbridge, M.L. Wallhagen and R.D. Cohen (2002), ‘Successful ageing and wellbeing: Self-rated compared with Rowe and Kahn’, Gerontologist, 42: pp. 727–32.
15 Christopher Callahan and Colleen McHorney (2003), ‘Successful ageing and the humility of perspective’, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2 Sept, vol 139, pp. 389–90.
16 A.Bowling and P. Dieppe (2005), ‘What is successful ageing and who should define it?’, BMJ, 331: pp. 1548–1551 (24 Dec).
17 Katharine Whitehorn (2007), Selective Memory, London, pp. 262–3.
18 Muriel Gillick (2006), The Denial of Ageing: Perpetual Youth, Eternal Life, and Other Dangerous Fantasies, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, pp. 213–4.
19 Times (2005), 6 Aug.
20 Diana M. Jelley (2006), ‘Which patients with which needs are leading the patient led NHS?’, BMJ, 332; p. 1221 (20 May).
Don’t waste my skills and experience
The right to work
It is now a generally accepted fact that old age stinks, and in some ways it does. I know because I’ve seen my mother go through it and now I’m getting there: my top lip is disappearing, my whiskers are growing, my hair is grey, my moles are mushrooming, I’ve lost what good looks I ever had, and when I had them I didn’t really know it and now they’re gone for ever, but would I give a toss if beauty wasn’t so vital and wrinkled women were all over the papers?
Michele Hanson, Guardian, 30 August 2006
The internet is not just for people in their twenties … I was pretty ancient when I got my first computer. Dear old ladies like me can take it up.
Jacquie Lawson, who became the market leader in online greeting cards at the age of 62
One of the things my mother used to say she hated most about getting old is that she didn’t like the way she looked. My mother had been saying she had the worst legs in London right through her life. Now that she had the most terrible wasting disease, which made her lose a great deal of weight and made her legs extremely painful, she looked down at them, and said – with a twinkle in her eye – that they were finally ‘improving’.
I tell this story because it illustrates a little of just how conscious older people are about their appearance. My mother’s legs gave her a great deal of pain, but she was able to derive some rueful satisfaction from the fact that they were finally a little slimmer.
Nor is she alone in this. If you look at some of the books of advice about getting old, there is always a great deal there about appearance, and the importance of ‘not letting yourself go’. This is advice aimed particularly at women, but it also applies to men, who find themselves all too easily in a combination of trainers and track suit bottoms, just because they are easier – for them or their carers – to put on and take off.
Older people feel that appearance is important, and they are right. Partly this is about self-respect, partly it is some protection against being treated like some dotty old biddy. This chapter is about work in the broadest sense. It is about being out in the world. That might seem a million miles from the question of appearance for younger people, but for older people the two are very much intertwined. Being active in the world, and appearing to be active in the world, are both prerequisites for self-respect, and for respect too in a society which is deeply biased against the old. That means underpinning your life by having a purpose and a reason for getting out of bed every morning, and looking as if you do too. Of all the aspects of life for older people in this book, these are the most important for them, and the most likely to keep people healthy for longer: looking as if you deserve respect, as well as having a role that brings respect.
In fact, of all the areas I talked to people about when I was researching this book, the issue of physical appearance probably provoked the most discussion amongst family and friends, not to mention the variety of experts. Actually, most of them agreed. On the one hand, most people felt it wasn’t a good idea to let yourself go. On the other, there was a clear view about how important it was to keep your self-respect, which meant staying looking good, being attractive to other people.
It