The elderly need to be recognised for their skills, not as a burden

Telegraph

11-05-2025

Old age,' wrote Lev Trotsky, 'is one of the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man'. It is a rare example of a Trotskyite sentiment with which many of us can empathise. But while ageing generally comes as a disagreeable surprise to individuals, it is only quite recently that wider society has had the same problem.
From Trollope to Galsworthy, 19th-and early 20th-century novels are intensely concerned with dynasties. The dramas of the Pallisers and the Forsytes are generational: the aspiring young struggle to make their way in the world; having made it, they find that the world has moved on. But the elder Forsytes and Pallisers are not negligible. Those aunts and dowagers, matriarchs and patriarchs, may have moved aside from the heat of the action, but they remain an influence.
Those novels reflect a society in which the intergenerational family was the basic unit of communities. Now familial and community bonds are loosened, if not quite unknit. The birth rate is declining, the numbers of elderly increasing, and with that demographic shift comes a change in the perception of the old as a problem: a drain on the NHS; incorrigible occupiers of houses too large for them; and a perennial annoyance to governments that have failed to get a grip on the social care system.
Next month the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, will unveil a 10-year plan to reform the NHS. It includes a strategic shift towards 'community-based preventative approaches', including the restoration of social bonds between the old and the young.
Here the UK could learn from countries such as Japan, Germany and the Netherlands, where intergenerational initiatives have been in place for decades. A 1983 Japanese programme recommended the formation of mixed groups of old and young to pursue activities such as gardening, environmental maintenance and Haiku composition.
The Japanese approach emphasises an expectation that elders will be active contributors to their communities, rather than recipients of care. Not coincidentally, the Japanese experiment with automated elder care consigned to 'carebots', proved unpopular and problematic. The UK, which invested £34 million in robots for adult social care in 2019, should beware Mark Zuckerberg's idea that AI can be a substitute for friendship.
Many admirable charitable initiatives exist to encourage relationships between young and old (familiar to those of us fortunate enough to have had loving grandparents). The Health Secretary has indicated that his department is exploring similar policies.
Perhaps his officials have already noted the Unesco report on such schemes in the Netherlands, where older people resented being seen as recipients of care, and wanted to be recognised as people with knowledge and competence.
We have a tendency in this country to celebrate our elders as 'exceptional' and 'marvellous' if they continue to exercise professional expertise and curiosity about the world. Sir David Attenborough and Sir Norman Foster, still producing remarkable work at 99 and 89, come to mind. They are exceptional in talent, as they always were. But within the UK's older population resides an untapped repository of knowledge, energy and skills.
I suspect the Health Secretary's plans for community hubs are already formed. But one day, he, too will find that he is unexpectedly old. So before he announces his policy, he might care to reflect on what he would like his own life to be at 80, 90 and beyond.
Animal spirits
It is an extraordinary moment when a wild creature suddenly seems to trust you. Correspondents to The Telegraph 's letters pages have recorded their engagements with friendly robins and blackbirds. In my own garden, I am followed about by an intrepid young blackbird who scoffs dug-up invertebrates from my hand.
Is it all about the food? Undoubtedly. But animal communication remains irresistibly fascinating. We are (or should be) long past the days when unfortunate apes were 'trained' in human sign language. But the boundaries between ourselves and the natural world seem tantalisingly permeable.
'When I am playing with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me?' wondered the Renaissance essayist, Michel de Montaigne. How indeed? But the assertively expressed views of robins, blackbirds (and, indeed, cats) are a source of great pleasure to their largely uncomprehending recipients.