Sunday, August 24, 2008

Living longer and age discrimination

The famous novelist, Margaret Drabble. has written a powerful article about age discrimination published in The Observer today: The old have a powerful role to play. We're going to enjoy it. From offensive road signs to bad jokes about silver surfers, age discrimination is one of the besetting problems of our times I recommend you read the entire article. Margaret Drabble makes a lot of excellent points such as this: We don't like being portrayed officially as dodderers with sticks and bent backs who are a menace on the roads and we object to patronising jokes about silver surfers. We want to choose to grow old gracefully, like the Queen or disgracefully, like John Mortimer and Beryl Cook, or not at all, like Helen Mirren. We don't want to be lumped into a category.

2 comments:

  1. I'm sixty but to many of the customers in the two shops where I work I'm the young lad!
    I enjoyed reading this article and agree with it.
    I think that keeping one's health, mental and physical, is the most important factor for staying active in old age.
    With an increasing ageing population I would hope that things will change for the better. xx

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  2. I'll be 55 next month so I'm not far behind you, flighty!

    I like that - you are 'the young lad' to many of the customers in the shops. I know just what you mean.

    The population is defintely getting noticeably older. I hope things will change for the better too.

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