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Eileen Fairhurst Professor in Public Health, Salford University( until December 31st 2016) & Chairman of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust“ I’ m not sure I do think of myself as a gerontologist … I define myself, I think, by my initial discipline, sociology. I’ m a sociologist who studies ageing.”
Paul Higgs Professor of Sociology of Ageing, University College London
“ If you look at our work, we use different conceptual starting points: the third age is very much about generational habitus and about the dispositions of people growing into older people who have lived through the transformations of the‘ 60s and
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Alison Norman Retired, former Deputy Director, Centre for Policy on Ageing
“ CPA had given up grant giving and were beginning to look for policy thinking. The first job that I was given, in fact as soon as I’ d settled in and looked through a bit of the history and found my feet, was to write a book on transport and the elderly which is what I cut my teeth on. That was my
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“ I’ m nearer the end of my life than the beginning, but do I want to think about it? I don’ t know. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’ t … I suppose my philosophy is, you can’ t wait, you can’ t sit around waiting for things to happen. Just get on and do.”
‘ 70s and‘ 80s; whereas the fourth age is seen very much more, almost historically, located in our fear of old age.”
“ The 20th century was about people living long lives; the 21st century is about what is going to happen in later life, and how that diversity is going to transform many of the assumptions that we have about old age.”
first book. But this rights and risks concept – because of my previous history [ as a psychiatric social worker ] – was very much in my mind at the time, and when I had a free rein on what I wanted to do next, that’ s what I did. It was clear that the whole field was moving very, very fast: BSG was being born; Ageing and Society was being born; and the whole psychogeriatric field was very much being born. It was a very exciting time. It was just one thing after another.”
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PETER COLEMAN Emeritus Professor of Psychogerontology, University of Southampton
“ They were happy for me to change my title to Professor of Psychogerontology. The title is interesting … it’ s a title that we used in the Netherlands. The alternative is geropsychologist. The difference between the two is
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Sarah Harper Professor of Gerontology, University of Oxford and Director, the Royal Institution
“ We will live in a Britain soon, and a Europe soon, where we have over half our population aged over 50 and therefore, our world will change. I would like to think that people would really understand what ageing is about: that business
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John Vincent Retired; former Associate Professor of Sociology and Honorary Research Fellow, University of Exeter
“ Over and above the basic intellectual curiosity trying to understand something that’ s not well understood, it was basically a political motivation … and seeing old age
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that for a psychogerontologist the gerontology comes first; whereas for a geropsychologist the psychology is preeminent. So that’ s why I took that title. It hasn’ t really caught on in Britain. I think I’ m still the only person who uses that title, and I’ ve used it more to stand up for what I believe in which is a developmental psychology of ageing.”
would understand it, that policy makers would understand it, and communities would understand it, and it wouldn’ t be this major taboo that we’ re having an ageing population. Because not only will we have all these people over 50, we’ re going to have increasing numbers of people over 80, or even over 90, or even over 100, and we have to have a society where it’ s perfectly normal and acceptable.”
as a particularly pernicious form of inequality. In order to change that you need to understand it.”
“ I’ ve had the opportunity since I retired to do all sorts of things. I just left academic life behind and I’ ve been following my passions for all sorts of things including self-sufficiency: with an allotment, a wood, being a bee keeper and all sorts of things.”
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Sally Greengross Crossbench Peer; Chief Executive, the International Longevity Centre- UK; and Co-President, ILC Global Alliance
“ I don’ t think anybody takes in the real demographic change because the numbers are quite amazing. The whole of society has got to adapt to the fact that it’ s children who will be scarce and older people will be the mainstream. I don’ t know
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whether it’ ll be irrelevant, but it’ s got to be viewed differently.”
“ Gerontologists have still got a huge job to do to make sure that age becomes more irrelevant. You could say it’ s the end of gerontology, it’ s just society. But if gerontology transforms itself into integrating age and making age less of a feature, then it’ s a very good job that gerontologists will do.”
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MARGARET BONEHAM Semi-retired; former Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Bolton
“ I got interested in ethnicity and was employed as a community support worker for a year, helping to set up a centre for elderly Asian Sikh ladies. And my PhD was action research setting up this day centre and looking at the relationship between them and social services and what
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help they were getting from their friends, from their family and from the wider community. I learnt Punjabi and that day centre which I helped to set up is still there 30 years later. As a result of that I cowrote a book with Ken Blakemore called Age, Race and Ethnicity, which won Age Concern Book of the Year in 1994.” |