And another voice of Much Older People

Age Concern England and Help the Aged (now a single charity to be known as Age UK from Spring 2010) has just announced a list of celebrities who will be contributing to their forthcoming Christmas fund-raising event at St Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge. Amongst them are Sir Roger Moore, Lionel Blair, June Whitfield and Sylvia Syms.

Well that’s good then. There has been some confusion resulting from noises emanating from Age UK (to be) that as part of their remit “to support older people” the new organisation is intending to concern itself with everyone aged 50 and over. But from this line up of the great and the good (who genuinely are to be commended for their efforts) it is clear that they must still intend to align their brand with the elderly.

Confirmation, if any was needed, comes from Sir Roger, who said, commenting on the event: “Far too often older people are forgotten about in our society, especially over the festive season. It is vital that we remember those older people who are suffering from isolation and loneliness at this time of year.”

Far from being lonely, the majority of the young old are far more likely to be over-stressed and over socialised from the usual round of festive work and family commitments. Rather than feeling isolated we’re more likely to be wishing for half an hour’s peace and quiet (in amongst all the good bits, of course).

Click here for more details of the event.

itea and Biscuits week and ‘Internet Champion Search’!

Age Concern and Help the Aged are looking for an Internet Champion to represent the charity and provide a leading light for the estimated 6.4 million people 65+ who have never used the internet, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

Many older people never have the chance to use the Internet, despite new research from Age Concern and Help the Aged finding that older people see the benefit of the internet with three in four people believing it to be a useful tool to stay in contact with friends and family (ICM survey 11-18 September 2009). The research also found that 61% of older people believe the internet to be a useful way of making savings on products and services.

The Internet Champion – who will be a regular older person who has embraced the internet – will show older people that using the internet is a realistic possibility for them and that they too can reap the benefits of being online.

The winner of the Internet Champion search will receive a laptop computer, a complete BT package including BT Total Broadband, as well as an all-expenses paid trip to London. For more information visit www.ageconcern.org.uk/it.

itea and biscuits week, supported by BT, offers older people nationwide the opportunity to get involved in technology ’taster sessions’ at local Age Concerns and other supporting organisations from September 21 to 25.

What is a regular older person?

The Internet Champion search aims to find an ordinary person (aged 55+) who has recently learned to use the internet and whose personal story can inspire others. The search will begin on 21 September 2009 and end on 13 November 2009 with the winner being selected by a panel of judges from Age Concern and Help the Aged. To apply, candidates will need to fill in the Internet Champion application form which can be downloaded from www.ageconcern.org.uk/it.

 

Fairness, equality and the lifecourse

Last week we attended the third in a series of seminars presented by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Age Concern / Help the Aged (for whom a new name is imminent). Entitled JustAgeing: fairness, equality and the lifecourse the programme focuses on inequality over the lifecourse with this particular seminar being held to examine the notion of inter-generational equity. In what was an interesting but fundamentally academic discussion, a number of contentious issues were raised not least the assumed ability of particular generations (in this case “baby boomers”) to manipulate resources to their own benefit and the detriment of others. What emerged yet again however is that we lack an adequate vocabulary to discuss meaningfully today’s ageing reality – as revealed by a clear demonstration that the generation we think of as “baby boomers” in the UK is in fact two different cohorts who have been subject to different social, economic and environmental influences relating to the different years they were born. 

But the real issue which quickly emerged from the heart of the session was the extent to which we, as a society or as providers of services, can or should expect to be able to achieve inter-generational equity and the extent to which this is either achievable or desirable.  After all, individuals always have been and will be different. As we have said so often before, why do we expect them then to suddenly become homogeneous simply because of a shared age?  It was an interesting theoretical discussion no doubt, but unfortunately there was not a great deal of practical use to take away.

It’s not going away!

This week I attended the first in a series of seminars under the title “Just Ageing” (http://justageing.equalityhumanrights.com/) which is being organised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the new charity formed from the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged. The first seminar looked at our assumptions about the process of ageing itself during which Professor Tom Kirkwood, Director of The Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University, gave a fascinating talk on the physiological and social experience of ageing.

I can’t really do justice here to his exposition which in itself was a huge summarisation of the work being undertaken. However, the message coming through loud and clear is that human beings are not per se programmed to die at any particular time – indeed the survival instinct in us is strong right to the end. So, under the right circumstances, increasing life expectancy can be expected to continue and we should celebrate old age, not see it as form of disability or inconvenience. What does happen is that imperfections in us and breakdowns in our ability to function bring on the end of our lives and if these can be eliminated or minimised then our life spans can be increased. Furthermore, many of the causes of this are “malleable” – things such as diet, housing, education, exercise, negative stress – as evidenced by differing life expectancies in different environments even within the same country.

This was the third seminar, organised by varying bodies, that I had attended in the space of a week each focusing on a differing aspect of ageing. There is much excellent work taking place and it is clear that the momentum is increasing. However, to date, government seems to concentrate only on the short term without a real “statesmanlike” approach to the longer term questions, employers (with a few exceptions) seem concerned only with damage limitation and containment of costs, and amongst the population at large there is a massive lack of awareness of the issues involved.

When will all this be pulled together?

Just who are we talking about?

As you may be very well aware Age Concern and Help the Aged have merged and, last Friday, we attended one of a series of presentations that they have been making around the country to bring on board their many members on the ground who do such valuable work. In addition, we also attended a workshop to consider what new name they should have and what image they should portray. It is here that they have a major dilemma.

Traditionally these charities have been associated with caring for the elderly and many of their workers and volunteers have this clearly in mind when considering their work and their investments of time and energy. However, it is also clear that management have in mind a broader remit, one which encompasses all people over 50 and, therefore opens up all kinds of other possibilities, in particular activities of a more commercial nature (but don’t mention Heyday whatever you do).

All we would say is tread very carefully. If it was ever true that being over 50 meant being elderly it is certainly not so now. As the charities themselves said there will, in future, be a sizeable minority of us who will live to be over 100. Nobody would ever dream of lumping together the first 50 years of our lives into one age category – and the same should apply to the second 50 years. Unless it is very careful the new charity runs the risk of not really fully understanding its own reason for being and in the process it will alienate supporters at all points in the age spectrum.

Pensioner? Moi?

It would be nice to think that this was irony, but somehow I think they just really don’t get it…

A recent article in the Daily Telegraph investigating older people’s views on business attitudes towards the older market (for article click here) was entitled “Half of pensioners think businesses are obsessed by youth”.

The first paragraph read: “Age Concern and Help the Aged, the newly merged charity, interviewed 1,000 people over the age of 50 and found that 57 per cent believed businesses ignored them in favour of appealing to the ‘youth market’, with 47 per cent saying they felt UK businesses were ‘youth-obsessed’. In response the charity is launching a scheme to brand certain products as ‘pensioner friendly’.”

Since when did everyone over 50 become a pensioner? Since when did “age friendly” (the actual name of the Age Concern/Help the Aged scheme) mean the same as “pensioner friendly”?

On the basis of this the Telegraph could proudly head the queue of those businesses that are obsessed by youth…