Director of the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme (AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC and MRC)

Director, European Research Area in Ageing (ERA-AGE)

Previously Director of ESRC Growing Older Programme, UK National Collaboration on Ageing Research and European Forum on Population Ageing Research.

How did your interest in ageing begin, and why?

This is difficult to pin down precisely. My sister and I spent our childhoods living in a small semi – with my parents and grandparents and so older people were very familiar. Then I did some voluntary work at school involving older people. The clincher, I guess, was being asked to work with Peter Townsend on the analysis of his mammoth study of poverty in the UK. By chance I was asked to look at the data on older people and intergenerational transfers. At the same time I was an active welfare rights campaigner, helping to run an advice stall on Saturdays, and inevitably older people were frequent callers. This was an early introduction to the practical issues of stigma and living on an inadequate income. I had a close interest in disability too and co-founded the Disability Alliance in 1974. It was immediately apparent that disability and old age were two separate policy pigeon-holes (even though the majority of disabled people are over 65). As to the why, well I must confess that I have always been motivated by social justice rather than scientific inquiry for its own sake.

What are your key areas of interest, and why?

I straddle gerontology, social policy and sociology so it is the intersections between them that have always interested me most of all. When I first started working in the ageing field, the role of social policy as one of the key influences shaping older people's lives was neglected almost everywhere. So this became and remains an important focus. Similarly with the other aspects of social structure that were overlooked for too long. These interests have meant that I have focussed on some of the key policy dimensions of ageing such as pensions and community care (including how policies influence caring relationships and gender roles) and on the development of a theoretical understanding of how States shape and respond to ageing and what role older people themselves play in this evolving relationship between structure and agency. The policy focus took me into the relationship between ageing and the labour market and how both State and employers' policies play a big part in both later life employment opportunities and the quality of older people's lives. A strong European comparative flavour was given to these interests when I was asked to Chair the European Observatory on Ageing and Older People in the early 90s. This remains an important aspect of my research portfolio because it has such a powerful potential in terms of affecting policy change. Another continuing interest that is linked to the core gerontology/social policy/sociology interfaces is the politics of ageing and, especially, the connections between macro, meso and micro politics. There's more but, I think, that will do for now.

Please can you briefly outline your career?

It's very simple: I worked with Peter Townsend at Essex, first on Poverty in the UK and then on the assessment of disability. Then I spent two years at the National Children's Bureau in London conducting the first post-16 follow-up of the NCDS (National Child Development Survey) cohort looking at the impact of educational disadvantage on early careers. Then, in 1977, I moved to a lectureship in social policy at Sheffield and here I stayed, being appointed to a chair in 1985. Please don't ask me to fill in the details!

What is your biggest challenge at the moment?

Responding to this questionnaire! This is only partly in jest as I am embarrassed to talk about myself. Apart from this the biggest challenge is undoubtedly that of trying to mould the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) research programme into something that is both, greater than the sum of its parts, and has a lasting impact on the quality of older people's lives.

What's been the biggest change in ageing research since you started?

Bear in mind that I started long ago and, therefore, there have been many changes including the development of theoretical perspectives in social science, a clearer understanding of the biology of ageing, recognition of the critical role of functional ageing, the emergence of new technologies and a design focus on ageing, the important recent work on ageing and development, the prioritisation of ageing by the Research Councils and the early formation of a user perspective on the part of older people. Within social gerontology I would nominate the widespread replacement of a simplistic functionalist paradigm with one based on the life course and the role of the political economy – whether from the perspectives of class, age, gender or race, or a combination of them – the social structure is now hard to ignore.

What is the biggest change that you have contributed to, and in what way?

With other respected colleagues and friends I have made a small contribution to the dominant paradigm in social gerontology. It amazed me that, early on, the political economy/ critical gerontology field was labelled as 'deterministic' when what we were trying to do was to emphasise what had been hidden in previous analyses with no intention of down-playing agency (I have tried elsewhere to put the record straight on this). Now, thankfully, the importance of social structure and social policy are widely acknowledged.

What do you like best about your work?

Writing and working with postgraduate students.

What do you like least about your work?

The myriad administrative tasks that come with everything else and excessive travelling.

What do you want to achieve as Director of the NDA Programme?

As mentioned already the big challenge is to ensure that the NDA Programme is the most successful ever mounted in this country. Success must be grounded in high quality science but, unless the Programme can make a difference to older people's lives and the ageing process, then it will have failed in my view. So I want the NDA Programme to achieve real lasting impact.

What do you enjoy most about being Director of the NDA Programme?

It is more a matter of what I will enjoy! The commissioning process has been an extended one, so that we have only recently mustered sufficient projects to constitute a programme. Based on my Growing Older Programme experience I know that I will most enjoy working with the projects and researchers to get the most out of what they are doing.

What do you like least about being Director of the NDA Programme?

The waiting has been difficult, while the Programme takes shape, especially seeing some of the early enthusiasm wane in this period. This is inevitable, in my view, given the need to properly commission the programme and ensure the proper expenditure of public money. The interest of the research communities will be revived when the programme has something to say. The other least enjoyable aspect is seeing good quality, alpha-rated projects, go unfunded.

What has been your involvement in the BSG?

Well, apart from being a member for longer than I can remember, I have spoken at numerous annual conferences (since 1981), promoted the Society in other cognate disciplines and played a small role in organising the annual conference last time it was in Sheffield. I have not been able to be more active because of all the other things I do and, in truth, I’ve always thought that the BSG has been in excellent hands.

What do you want to achieve in your future career?

The NDA Programme is going to occupy me for quite some time and so its successful completion is a major goal. I also want to use the accumulated knowledge of decades to broaden society's understanding of ageing and older people. Contributing to the debates on European and global ageing are important parts of my agenda too. There is much to be done to ensure that ageing research figures centrally in the Framework Programmes and the UN's Madrid Plan requires earnest regional implementation.

Describe yourself in three words.

I like to think: committed, generous, romantic but would defer to the (fair and unbiased) judgement of others.

What was the first record that you ever bought?

Heavens, that's a tough question! Probably a blues record or R&B: Sonny Boy Williamson or Chuck Berry.

What is your favourite city, and why?

This is equally tough because there are many I like to visit and to choose one is false but, for the sake of form, I'll plump for Hong Kong because I am amazed constantly by the mixture of British and Chinese culture and, because I have so many colleagues and friends there, it always feels like a second home.

What book are you reading at the moment?

I have just returned from holiday and so have been reading a great deal of fiction. By coincidence (honest) three very different cultural perspectives on ageing and loss: Philip Roth's Everyman, Juan Goytisolo's The Blind Rider and Kieran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss. Two other recent reads that I would recommend are Cormac McCarthy's The Road (bleak but compellingly humanistic) and David Mitchell's Black Swan Green (a powerful observation of male adolescence). On the non-fiction front I'm enjoying extracts from Karl Marx's dispatches to the New York Tribune. 'Journalistic' is a common scientific put down but expressing complex ideas in an accessible form, in my view, is an essential part of the scientist's duty to society.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Cast ne're a clout 'til M/may is out (from my grandmother).

What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given that you didn't listen to?

Work and travel less.

What three things would you take to a desert island with you, and why?

My partner, paper and pens, and music (a solar-powered iPod?), because I can't live without any of them.