What its like for me

I was staying with dear friends we have known since student days and inevitably the conversation developed around the subject of these postings, and we talked about what its like to be at this time of our lives. Able to fulminate about the sort of things that make me despair at the culture of manipulation and greed that surrounds us, Brian however was essentially positive about his life. At one point he said that it was a privilege to be old. The statement was sufficiently different from some of the blogs in this series for me to ask him to reflect on what he meant by this.

It can only be said, he writes, ‘by an aged person like me who already enjoys other advantages as well - a loving and caring wife, a comfortable home, western style prosperity, an income adequate for my chosen lifestyle, general good health - to name a few. The particular advantages are of 2 kinds : freedom from restraints, and the wealth of time.

The first is freedom to do and be what you choose. Being aged we can take control of our lives and make our own choices, probably in ways not previously possible. How we live our lives depends upon our own needs, attitudes, values, not upon the direction, control or demands of others. Now we can choose our own criteria for our actions, our commitments to others, all the things we do. We can still choose to give ourselves to the needs and wishes of others and these are chosen not imposed priorities.

Wealth of time is the other main advantage. Sometimes this is a source of anxiety about what to do with it. Long experience of feeling pressed for time to do what has to be done makes this new time wealth difficult to get used to, leading to worries about extended years of boredom.

But now we can have new family time, new things to do time, new experiences to discover time, new learning time, new voluntary service time, new leisure time - the list is as long as you want. There is time to enjoy new experiences that you have long wished for; revisiting those people, places and activities that mean a lot to us.

However the future is limited. Many things hoped for won’t happen. Mountains both literal and figurative will not be climbed. So we have to make the most of the wealth of time that we have left!’

…thank you, Brian,

Bryan

Patience - or the lack of it

I have never been reluctant to share my opinions with people – often positive but sometimes negative ones, ranging from politics, the shape of society, the state of the church, music and the arts. Kind friends and tolerant family have mostly listened to them sympathetically whilst reserving the right to disagree. But I find as I grow older, I am more easily irritated and get even angry about all sorts of things. Very -IMpatient. Small in themselves they become major irritants.

The radio is a constant victim of my ire. For example people who repeatedly say ‘you know what I mean?’ They are there to tell us what they mean on the assumption that we don’t know! Politicians do it a lot and should know better. Similarly I get impatient with interviewers who ask loaded questions in order to get the answers they are looking for, or at some length and in their own words repeat what their interviewees have already said. I have a short list of such people whose coverage of news at the beginning of the day is important, but whose performance in the process can get in the way of their material.

Our electronic age can reduce me if not to actual apoplexy, certainly to speechless rage when that’s exactly what one would like to do – speak to what or whoever it is that one is trying to log onto. But you can’t. Everything is programmed for the convenience of the vendor. You are a creature in someone else’s world, allowed into it only if you understand the intricacies of computerisation, know which hoops to jump through, and never make a mistake (and I make many!) There are few things that divide the generations more than computers, although I admit to having friends of my own generation who seem to have entered that world very much more successfully than I have. (And here I am using it!!)

Two other moans. First, TV providers who keep on telling us how fortunate we are to be caught in their net, and who promise immediate help if something goes wrong. Like now, when our TV set doesn’t function and we have to wait three days before it can be seen to – and that after pressing countless buttons and spending 45 minutes on the phone trying to reach them. Second, people who phone us to ask us to share in a marketing exercise, ‘that will take only a minute’ of our time. Again, a fish caught in someone else’s net – though admittedly able in this case to wriggle free, which I usually do.

Ah well. Back to balance and self-control; or the attempt to achieve both.

Bryan

Caring for the Elderly

The fear that older people have of ending their lives in a Care Home was brought into vivid relief yesterday when a government report on the use of ant-psychotic drugs for the elderly was published. Apparently as many as 144,000 people suffering from dementia are routinely being given such drugs unnecessarily. The Report claims that such excessive use causes an estimated 1,800 deaths each year, can cause strokes and create or add to behavioural problems. ‘The benefits of these drugs are relatively small’, the report says, recommending that the number prescribed should decrease by 2/3rds over the next three years, better training should be given to Care Homes staff, and stricter guidance to doctors.

The Report recognises the realities of the situation. Whilst the Chairman of the National Care Homes Association blames the doctors, there is no doubt that G.P.’s are often under pressure from the Homes to help staff deal with difficult patients, and they themselves may be inadequately trained in comprehensive care. The Chairman of the Royal College of G.P.’s admits to ‘an awful situation’, claiming that doctors’ care is often patchy. The Alzheimer’s Association have responded by saying that the excessive use of drugs is a serious violation of peoples’ rights’.

Welcoming the Report and promising that all its recommendations will be acted on, the government’s care services minister says that the routine use of antipsychotic drugs is unacceptable and refers to the guidance of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence that such drugs should only be ever used when they are really necessary.

In the course of my work I have visited many care homes, vastly improved over the years but still widely varying in their administration and practice. I recognise that it is a very difficult job indeed. Better training, closer supervision of the statutory and voluntary homes, and increased financial resources are the obvious consequences of the report.

For many of us, as we live as actively as we can, fears of our last years remain. An old school friend and I were talking about it this week. And yet how well in this country older people are cared for. Yesterday I collected my monthly package of prescriptions. I saw a notice in the chemist which said that the cost is £7.10 for each item. I worked out that I was collecting £50 worth of medical care. Free.

Bryan

November 11th

Today is Armistice Day, so named to commemorate the ending of hostilities prior to a peace settlement, as the 19145-18 War between Germany and Great Britain drew to its end. I grew up during a time when the memory of that appalling conflict and the slaughtering of young lives was still fresh in people’s minds. My father served in the Royal Navy and his ship was torpedoed in the N. Atlantic. Only seventeen years of age, he struggled in the water for five hours before he and others were rescued. Our present family honour the memory of another father, killed in the European war that followed in 1939, as fascism and totalitarianism spread across Western and Eastern Europe.

I have always found the contrast between the waste of life and the pursuit of a noble cause, very difficult to balance. On Remembrance Sunday and again today there has been much talk of ‘the fallen who have given their lives for the sake of the nation’. Were not their lives taken rather than given? The same language is being used to interpret the present loss of life in Afghanistan, though with less justification. I find it difficult to justify foreign intervention in a country such as this, so riven as it is by corruption and inner conflict. In the U.K. there are more and more questions being raised about our involvement there, notably amongst some of the bereaved relatives.

Young men who join the armed forces must have a variety of reasons for doing so, and learning to face the possibility that they may be killed, must be part of their training. One admires their bravery and courage in action. But the annual memory of the ‘war that was to end all wars’ is in danger of becoming an exercise in nostalgia unless we really have learned something about our responsibility to try all means of peace and justice before we begin yet another regime of armed hostility.

I was in town this morning when a cannon was fired to denote the beginning of the traditional two minutes silence. Like some others I stopped and stood, and mourned and prayed. Near to me were a group of four young people, one of them smoking, talking to each other a little, awkward and slightly embarrassed, but joining in the stillness, setting off down the street again as soon as the second cannon fired.

I so long for their generation to be free of the conflicts that have been the curse of the last century

Bryan

UP...and up?

We saw the Pixar animation/Disney film, ‘UP’ last week. It tells the story of a love affair between the cautious Carl and his adventurous tomboy wife Ellie, whose great but unfulfilled ambition was to go to Paradise Falls in South America. Carl makes a living selling toy balloons and Ellie works in the local zoo. They grow old together in the ramshackle house where they first met. They save money for the great trip but keep on having to spend it on other financial responsibilities. Ellie dies and Carl becomes a crusty recluse, as a major house clearance and rebuilding scheme around him, leaves him marooned in his memories and unfulfilled dreams.

Then sparky young Russell arrives on the scene. He is a Wilderness Explorer. His coat is full of badges only one of which - assisting the elderly -remains to be earned. Resisting any suggestion that he needs assistance, Carl tries to get rid of his persistent visitor but eventually the two of them with the help of a great bunch of helium filled balloons, lift the whole house into the sky, and they travel hopefully towards Paradise Falls.

There follows a whole series of adventures – including more than a fair share of the inevitable chase sequences – with some wonderful panoramic scenes of great beauty. Everything comes alright of course in the end, the strange duo becoming closer, joined later by a talking dog and a mute tropical bird whom Russell names Kevin, not realising that she is a she not a he.

The film is proving a major success. It’s a bit too long but immensely imaginative and –especially in the relationship of Ellie and Carl, tender, and in the growing affection of the old man and the young boy, quite affecting. The contrast between an elderly man locked into time and then his discovery of a new world which he had thought was now beyond him, was quite a powerful parable for me. The animation is very clever. Carl really is old, getting out of bed in the morning involves unlocking his body from its sleep, before getting on to his stair lift to live another predictable day of fighting the world and capitulating to his own loneliness. A dream and a seven year old boy, save him!

A film worth seeing – and it got me thinking about where my next ‘up’ might be..

Bryan