Age and ageism
Ruby Cox explores attitudes towards age and has a suggestion for coming together on the issue. Ben Bruges responds with three photo-texts.
Greetings from the Yarnfield Conference Centre near Stoke on Trent where I’m attending the National Pensioners’ Convention Biennial Delegate Conference. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? I bet you wish you were here instead of me! It’s okay, I’m only kidding, I’m only too aware that in the real world, the mention of the word ‘pensioner’ has most people heading for the hills and – given the way older people are portrayed in our media – who can blame them?
Relegated to the Sidelines
My first serious encounter with ageism came via my trade union, shortly after I retired in 2012. I won’t name it because I’m sure they’re not alone in this. Having been a trade union activist for most of my working life, I imagined that after I retired I would have even more time and energy to devote to the union that I had been a part of for so long. Not so! I soon discovered I was well and truly relegated to the sidelines, my role within the union severely restricted and the skills I had acquired as an activist no longer required.
You might just say that I was suffering from a bruised ego, but when I looked around me, there were many who felt the same – years spent acquiring skills and knowledge that could be used supporting working members that were discarded as though they had never happened. I spent several years banging my head against that particular brick wall, trying to change things, but to no avail. In the end I decided there had to be a better model for the way to treat those in later life, and that is when I came across the Network of Age-friendly Cities.
Age can be wise; Age can be wild; Age can be peaceful
CREDIT: Ben Bruges
Breaking the Stereotypes
Their model was completely different and focussed on inclusion – utilising the skills and experience older people had acquired and treating old age as just another step in life’s journey, not an excuse to throw people on the scrapheap. They broke their work down into eight ‘domains’: housing, health, travel, environment, social inclusion, social participation, civic participation and communication. They encourage local authorities to examine how they could make each of these more relevant for older people To include participation in the decision-making processes, and break the stereotypes that tell us that older people need to have decisions made for them because they are no longer capable of making them for themselves. Let me tell you, as a councillor I absolutely could not wait to bring this idea to Hastings Borough Council, and when I did, at a full council meeting on 15 December 2020, I could tell that the ideas encapsulated in the age-friendly approach were as much a revelation to many fellow councillors as they had been to me. Virtually every member had something to say on the subject, and the motion recommending that Hastings join up was carried unanimously. Here is some of what I said in my speech:
“Old age is generally something people prefer not to think about, thanks to negative stereotypes and the feeling that there is little left to look forward to. Every day we are bombarded with negative images of older people and headlines about wealthy pensioners living off the fat of the land, stealing work and income from younger people, as though ‘baby boomers’ who enjoyed free education, full employment and council housing somehow contrived to remove all these basic entitlements from their own children and grandchildren and now sit gloating.
“It remains a sad fact that even though age is one of the protected characteristics in the equalities act 2010, ageism is still rampant in our society, and little is actually done to stop it. That’s why it is seemingly so easy to ignore the human rights of older people. Amnesty recently released a report, As If Expendable, highlighting the government’s failure to protect older people in care homes during the Covid 19 pandemic. In its summary, it stated that national policies had been adopted and decisions taken that directly violated the right to life, right to health, and to non-discrimination of care home residents. Amongst many other horrific examples, it details how blanket do-not-recusitate orders were imposed without residents’ knowledge or consent, and how they were denied access to hospital and to GPs.
“The Age-friendly Network recognises the huge prejudice that exists in society against older people and provides a new and exciting framework within which older people can become involved in shaping their local environments, find a voice, and work in partnership with local agencies and organisations, fully involved in every aspect of life in their locality.”
Achievements in Hastings
After that, with the help of my illustrious colleague Debby Anderson at Hastings Voluntary Action, and the support of Cllr Judy Rogers, Equalities Lead, the project went from strength to strength. In spite of the best efforts of Covid to scupper our plans, we:
• developed a questionnaire which has been used throughout the community to engage with older people’s groups and within sheltered housing venues across the town.
• delivered events for voluntary sector members, stakeholders and the wider community. In Sept 2021 on National Older Persons’ Day, we held an Age-friendly Communities event in Sussex Halls, White Rock Theatre.
• held age-friendly community coffee mornings monthly. These provide an informal way for local older people to meet with relevant stakeholders and services. Each coffee morning is themed around each of the eight age-friendly domains.
• took Age-friendly Communities into sheltered housing schemes working in partnership with both Optivo and Orbit Housing.
And many other things besides. Our most recent achievement has been the agreement of Hastings Borough Council to our age-friendly pledge, which again covers all eight domains. It states: “In Hastings we believe all our older residents should have fulfilled lives – feeling valued by all sections of society, living as independently as possible and being encouraged to contribute to their local communities. By making the Pledge we aspire to develop Hastings as a great place to grow older in. Working alongside the voluntary sector and in particular Hastings Voluntary Action, Hastings Borough Council will strive to achieve this by acting in accordance with the following.” This statement is followed by 10 individual pledges.
Demanding a Living Pension
And so, back to Stoke on Trent! What am I doing here? Well, tomorrow I’m due to give a speech in support of a motion submitted by our local branch of the National Pensioners’ Convention, demanding a living pension, and I’ll leave you with some facts and figures that may surprise you, as most things do, when you start to look into the reality of life for pensioners in this country.
• A report by Age UK in 2017 tells us that over 65’s contributed £160bn to the economy through employment, childcare, informal caring and voluntary work, an amount which has almost trebled since their previous report in 2014. The public are told that older people are bankrupting the country by living longer and needing social care, but the bill for that came to only £26bn in 2020/21, a drop in the ocean compared to their contribution.
• An article in the Daily Express in August 2021 found that the UK state pension is not just the worst in Europe, it is third worst in the entire world, with only Mexico and South Africa lagging behind in terms of the percentage of pension payments to pre-retirement income.
• Research in 2019 showed that reliance on the state pension is increasing, with 17% of pensioner households now surviving on state benefits alone, the highest level recorded since 1995-96. Single pensioners are even more dependent on the state, with a quarter having no other income, the highest proportion recorded.
• So, no matter how old you are, I hope you found this article interesting reading, and if you want to know any more about Age-friendly Hastings.
• Contact me at [email protected] or Debby Anderson [email protected] The next coffee morning is on Friday 29 April and the theme is ‘Communications’.
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