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| We applaud the active old but if they carry on for ever, the young may lose out | We applaud the active old but if they carry on for ever, the young may lose out |
| (about 2 months later) | |
| For anyone the wrong side of 60, last week’s tributes to leading nonagenarians have made heartwarming reading. So much so that I’m tempted to ask my parents, aged 88 and 92, now they’ve enjoyed their gap decades, why they don’t go back to work. Yes, it would leave less time for gardening and the crossword, but wouldn’t it make a nice break from being cold-called by organised criminals pretending to be from BT? | For anyone the wrong side of 60, last week’s tributes to leading nonagenarians have made heartwarming reading. So much so that I’m tempted to ask my parents, aged 88 and 92, now they’ve enjoyed their gap decades, why they don’t go back to work. Yes, it would leave less time for gardening and the crossword, but wouldn’t it make a nice break from being cold-called by organised criminals pretending to be from BT? |
| The losses of Baroness Trumpington, 96, and of Harry Leslie Smith, 95, revealed an enthusiasm for contributions by old people or at least those with wisdom or witticisms to share, which is rarely reflected in either workforce composition or in coverage of a demographic usually portrayed as the cause of endless, bed-blocking trouble. | The losses of Baroness Trumpington, 96, and of Harry Leslie Smith, 95, revealed an enthusiasm for contributions by old people or at least those with wisdom or witticisms to share, which is rarely reflected in either workforce composition or in coverage of a demographic usually portrayed as the cause of endless, bed-blocking trouble. |
| You would never have guessed, for instance, from tributes to their service and, in the baroness’s case, her numerous eccentricities that some participants in the Brexit debate do not conceal their impatience for thousands of Trumpington- (and under) aged people to die off as quickly as possible, so as to swing a second referendum, notwithstanding evidence that Second World War survivors may feel especial revulsion for the current chaos, its architects, and their despicable rhetoric. | You would never have guessed, for instance, from tributes to their service and, in the baroness’s case, her numerous eccentricities that some participants in the Brexit debate do not conceal their impatience for thousands of Trumpington- (and under) aged people to die off as quickly as possible, so as to swing a second referendum, notwithstanding evidence that Second World War survivors may feel especial revulsion for the current chaos, its architects, and their despicable rhetoric. |
| Lady Trumpington obituary | Lady Trumpington obituary |
| It’s even possible that Boris Johnson might have blithered with less complacency about Hitler, the Third Reich and Churchill, whom he liked to picture on his campaign bus, had he been regularly confronted by individuals who, like my parents, having heard the real Churchill’s voice coming out of their wirelesses, are able to picture sunlit uplands as something other than the fulfilment of the contemporary shagger’s political ambitions. | It’s even possible that Boris Johnson might have blithered with less complacency about Hitler, the Third Reich and Churchill, whom he liked to picture on his campaign bus, had he been regularly confronted by individuals who, like my parents, having heard the real Churchill’s voice coming out of their wirelesses, are able to picture sunlit uplands as something other than the fulfilment of the contemporary shagger’s political ambitions. |
| As it is, when not exhibiting hitherto unimaginable depths of Johnsonian ignorance and vanity, on BBC Two’s brilliant Inside the Foreign Office, this middle-aged liability is still out there, spewing WW2 and empire-related similes. Perhaps politically engaged but elderly civilians who defy their xenophobic stereotyping on Twitter spend too little time roaming regional market squares to feature in BBC vox pops or to get invited on Newsnight panels of allegedly representative civilians. Maybe it doesn’t help that they’re unlikely to be obsessively online. For whatever reason, neither the abolition of the retirement age, nor official acknowledgement that ageism is just another form of discrimination has translated into observably enhanced respect for older generations, nor into any brake on dehumanising generalisations, nor on the still unembarrassed use of “old” as an insult intensifier, eg, “crusty/gnarly/shrivelled old terf”. | As it is, when not exhibiting hitherto unimaginable depths of Johnsonian ignorance and vanity, on BBC Two’s brilliant Inside the Foreign Office, this middle-aged liability is still out there, spewing WW2 and empire-related similes. Perhaps politically engaged but elderly civilians who defy their xenophobic stereotyping on Twitter spend too little time roaming regional market squares to feature in BBC vox pops or to get invited on Newsnight panels of allegedly representative civilians. Maybe it doesn’t help that they’re unlikely to be obsessively online. For whatever reason, neither the abolition of the retirement age, nor official acknowledgement that ageism is just another form of discrimination has translated into observably enhanced respect for older generations, nor into any brake on dehumanising generalisations, nor on the still unembarrassed use of “old” as an insult intensifier, eg, “crusty/gnarly/shrivelled old terf”. |
| Even among the wokiest of the woke, “old” remains a go-to, portmanteau slur and gammon-indicator (one logically as applicable to David Attenborough and Alan Bennett as it is to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell), except, of course, in eulogies where it denotes the opposite: experience, insight, a richly lived integrity that commands admiration. “His popularity was, in part,” Bella Mackie wrote last week of the late Harry Leslie Smith, “because his wisdom came from his long life”. | Even among the wokiest of the woke, “old” remains a go-to, portmanteau slur and gammon-indicator (one logically as applicable to David Attenborough and Alan Bennett as it is to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell), except, of course, in eulogies where it denotes the opposite: experience, insight, a richly lived integrity that commands admiration. “His popularity was, in part,” Bella Mackie wrote last week of the late Harry Leslie Smith, “because his wisdom came from his long life”. |
| Perhaps this will be said, though not, one hopes, until some very distant day, about Eileen Jolly, 88, an NHS secretary who has just become the oldest person to sue for age discrimination, following dismissal for a mistake in uploading data. Her consultant supports her. But a tribunal has heard that another colleague observed – what presumably nobody did last year when Baroness Trumpington guest-edited the Today programme – “It was always a concern that you could walk in and find Eileen dead on the floor.” (She had previously survived cardiac arrest.) For her part, Mrs Jolly says she’d intended to work until 90, “at least”. | Perhaps this will be said, though not, one hopes, until some very distant day, about Eileen Jolly, 88, an NHS secretary who has just become the oldest person to sue for age discrimination, following dismissal for a mistake in uploading data. Her consultant supports her. But a tribunal has heard that another colleague observed – what presumably nobody did last year when Baroness Trumpington guest-edited the Today programme – “It was always a concern that you could walk in and find Eileen dead on the floor.” (She had previously survived cardiac arrest.) For her part, Mrs Jolly says she’d intended to work until 90, “at least”. |
| The abolition of the retirement age has not translated into respect for older generations | The abolition of the retirement age has not translated into respect for older generations |
| Mrs Jolly’s troubles, if online comments are any guide, elicit minimal sympathy. Even without her wish to work on, à la Trumpington, her case exposes some of the difficulties in abolishing obligatory retirement when this is unevenly enforced and when threats to raise the pensionable age to 70 are already resented by workers who enjoy their work less than Mrs Jolly does hers. Disdain, in some quarters, for the finite, “lump of labour” fallacy also seems to have done little to dismiss objections, not unfounded during economic turbulence, that the retirement of retirement is, simply, generationally unfair. | Mrs Jolly’s troubles, if online comments are any guide, elicit minimal sympathy. Even without her wish to work on, à la Trumpington, her case exposes some of the difficulties in abolishing obligatory retirement when this is unevenly enforced and when threats to raise the pensionable age to 70 are already resented by workers who enjoy their work less than Mrs Jolly does hers. Disdain, in some quarters, for the finite, “lump of labour” fallacy also seems to have done little to dismiss objections, not unfounded during economic turbulence, that the retirement of retirement is, simply, generationally unfair. |
| On the other side, the BBC’s John Simpson, 74, its employee since 1966, is outraged that this should affect someone like him. “What really pisses me off about trying to get rid of older people is that it is based on your date of birth, not the quality of your reporting.” | On the other side, the BBC’s John Simpson, 74, its employee since 1966, is outraged that this should affect someone like him. “What really pisses me off about trying to get rid of older people is that it is based on your date of birth, not the quality of your reporting.” |
| But if arguments for protecting the status quo from ambitious seniors can sound disagreeably similar to earlier ones for not hiring women, or migrants, retirement age abolition must allow, unlike other equalities advances, for variations in individual ageing. We cannot all, alas, be Simpson. For instance, while Baroness Trumpington was still an ornament, aged 94, to the Lords, her late colleague, Lord Janner, had been diagnosed, by the age of 81, with Alzheimer’s disease, albeit he went on to vote more than 200 times and to claim £104,365 in expenses. | But if arguments for protecting the status quo from ambitious seniors can sound disagreeably similar to earlier ones for not hiring women, or migrants, retirement age abolition must allow, unlike other equalities advances, for variations in individual ageing. We cannot all, alas, be Simpson. For instance, while Baroness Trumpington was still an ornament, aged 94, to the Lords, her late colleague, Lord Janner, had been diagnosed, by the age of 81, with Alzheimer’s disease, albeit he went on to vote more than 200 times and to claim £104,365 in expenses. |
| While scores of veteran bus drivers may, similarly, be more skilled, thanks to experience, than their juniors, another may, without adequate monitoring, become a public danger. The former employers of Kailash Chander, who accidentally killed two people in Coventry when, aged 77, he was suffering from undiagnosed dementia, have called (having previously ignored warnings about Chander’s driving) for a legal age limit for drivers of large vehicles. That would be the same sort of age limit, then, as has been challenged by judges and an airline pilot, Wayne Bailey, who suffers only from being over 65. | While scores of veteran bus drivers may, similarly, be more skilled, thanks to experience, than their juniors, another may, without adequate monitoring, become a public danger. The former employers of Kailash Chander, who accidentally killed two people in Coventry when, aged 77, he was suffering from undiagnosed dementia, have called (having previously ignored warnings about Chander’s driving) for a legal age limit for drivers of large vehicles. That would be the same sort of age limit, then, as has been challenged by judges and an airline pilot, Wayne Bailey, who suffers only from being over 65. |
| Where retirement is concerned, it’s hard to say which is more unhelpful: the old imposition, regardless of individual inclination and skills, of some arbitrary age or the opposite expectation, as it grows in popularity, that it is reasonable, as well as impressive, to keep a job forever. | Where retirement is concerned, it’s hard to say which is more unhelpful: the old imposition, regardless of individual inclination and skills, of some arbitrary age or the opposite expectation, as it grows in popularity, that it is reasonable, as well as impressive, to keep a job forever. |
| • Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist | • Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist |
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| Alzheimer's | Alzheimer's |
| Health | Health |
| Inequality | Inequality |
| Ageing | Ageing |
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