My involvement in social gerontology began in 1964 when I was appointed Temporary Lecturer in Applied Sociology in the Department of Social and Economic Research at the University of Glasgow. This strange title provided no indication of my responsibilities. In fact, I became one of two researchers charged with addressing how local services were being planned to address the needs of elderly people. Funding for a three-year project had been secured by Barry Cullingworth from the National Corporation for the Care of Old People (now the Centre for Policy on Ageing). With my co-researcher, Greta Sumner, we drafted a history of developments in policy at the national level and provided a profile of residential, housing and domiciliary services in 1965. The fieldwork comprised visits to 24 local authorities in England, Wales and Scotland. We attempted to identify how needs were assessed and to pin down resource constraints on developing policies to address the needs identified. Staffing, finance and physical resources were examined in detail as were the roles of other statutory bodies, plus the voluntary and private sectors. This descriptive, empirical research was published in 1969 by George Allen and Unwin in the University of Glasgow Social and Economic Studies. The title of the 400 page book faithfully reflected the content. It was called Planning Local Authority Services for the Elderly.

Part way through the research, Barry Cullingworth moved to the University of Birmingham to set up the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies. I was delighted when he suggested I should apply for a Senior Research Associateship and join a research team on a Social Science Research Council (SSRC) funded project called Social Planning for New Communities. One of the publications based on this project was a chapter on New Towns and Old People in a book edited by Hugh Mellor (NCCOP) on Housing in Retirement (Bedford Square Press, 1973).

Funded research on social gerontology took a backseat in the 1970s. Between 1972 and 1974 I was seconded to the Civil Service College as a Lecturer in Social Policy. This provided a fascinating insight into the Whitehall culture. Towards the end of this period of secondment, I was very attracted by the aims and objectives of a new government sponsored department at the University of Bristol. I joined the School for Advanced Urban Studies (SAUS) in October 1974 as one of the early appointments under the leadership of first Sir Colin Buchanan and subsequently Tony Eddison from the Institute of Local Government Studies (INCOGOV) at the University of Birmingham. One of the main features of SAUS was to provide policy-oriented continuing professional development courses for officials mainly from the public sector and a major reorganisation of local government had just been put in place. My earlier work with both central and local government helped to establish the positive reputation of SAUS. It was in the mid 1970s that I developed a new academic and practical interest. The UK had joined the EEC in January 1973 and SAUS became one of the few bodies in the 1970s providing short courses on the domestic implications of EEC membership for local government and the voluntary sector. I was one of the SAUS staff involved from the outset, planning and running several events in Bristol or London from 1977 onwards.

However, SAUS being a broad church, we were encouraged to address emerging policy issues across the field of social policy. As a result of the publication of a government discussion document, A Happier Old Age, SAUS organised a seminar in June 1978 as part of the consultation process. One of the outcomes was a SAUS Working Paper, Policies for the Elderly, produced by Chris Ham and myself in 1979. Another longer term outcome was the presence at the seminar of a trainee social worker from Birmingham particularly interested in the needs of older people. His name was Robin Means.

Not long after, Robin joined SAUS as a research assistant on an SSRC funded project on implementation headed up by Michael Hill. Robin conducted case studies on rent rebates and meals on wheels. In discussion on future work, Robin suggested that we should devise a study of the development of welfare services for older people in the middle years of the twentieth century. A Social Science Research Council grant funded a two-year project between October 1981 and September 1983. The research was mainly archival, supported by interviews with some key players involved in the development of service between 1939 and 1971. One of the unusual features of this archival work was asking for access in the Public Record Office to the files leading up to the 1948 National Assistance Act. They were nowhere to be found and the PRO contacted the Departmental Record Office of the then Department of Health and Social Security. They were eventually found in a warehouse in North London and brought to Head Office. We were then invited to scrutinise them and make suggestions for how they should be weeded. The latter task, we pleaded, was beyond our competences. A book was published in 1985 by Croom Helm. It was called The Development of Welfare Services for Elderly People. (A revised edition was published by The Policy Press in 1998, called From Poor Law to Community Care).

The later part of the 1980s was taken up by Directorship of SAUS (1987-1990) and by a major project on alcohol education, funded by the Health Education Authority, followed by a focus on community care more generally at the end of the decade, reflecting the White Paper of November 1989, Caring for People and subsequently the 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act. The output from a SAUS based seminar on community care research and community care policy was published by the School in 1992. The monograph was edited by myself and Lyn Harrison, a much missed colleague in Bristol. A major SAUS book with contributions from six authors and focusing on working together for better community care was published in 1993. In the following year, Robin and I published the first edition of Community Care: Policy and Practice in the Macmillan Public Policy and Politics series edited by former SAUS colleagues, Colin Fudge and Robin Hambleton. A second edition followed in 1998. Also in 1994, I had the honour of co-editing (with Jane Raistrick) a 21st anniversary book reflecting in 21 chapters the ideas and achievements of 28 academics at the School for Advanced Urban Studies. It was published by The Policy Press and was called Policy and Change. SAUS also found itself subject to change and in 1995 was merged with the Departments of Social Policy and Social Work to form the School for Policy Studies (SPS) at the University of Bristol.

The next major project with Robin Means (and Hazel Morbey) addressed the more recent history of services for older people covering the period 1971-1993. The Economic and Social Research Council funded an 18 month project in 1998-1999 by which time Robin had become a professor in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at the University of the West of England. The fieldwork built on earlier work by Robin and SAUS colleagues on the implementation of the community care reforms in four contrasting local authorities. Taking a thematic approach, case studies were undertaken involving documentary material from selected years over the 22 year period of the study, plus interviews with 39 key players. The result was a book published in 2002 by The Policy Press called From Community Care to Market Care? The question mark is important.

In July 2001, I officially retired having been Acting Head of the SPS in 2000-2001 and having reaching pensionable age. Clearly, the University of Bristol had invested a lot in me and I in it. However, there was much unfinished business and I was pleased to be offered a two year renewable Senior Research Fellowship by the University. One of the early tasks was to be part of an extended research team studying significant life events in old age. The project was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and reported in 2003. In the same year, the third edition of the Community Care book, now with a third author, Sally Richards, was published.

Since 2003, and with regular renewals of the Senior Research Fellowship, I have been involved in two further ESRC funded projects. The first, a very challenging project undertaken with two colleagues from The Open University, Julia Johnson and Sheena Rolph, was to revisit Peter Townsend’s seminal work on residential care in England and Wales, published under the title of The Last Refuge in 1962. The data collected from the fieldwork in 1958 and 1959 is stored in the National Social Policy and Social Change Archive at the University of Essex. Townsend and his team visited 173 homes. The funding was for a two year project (2005-2007) and there were two strands to the study. One was to follow-up on the 37 homes providing care in 2005-06 and the other was to trace what happened on the sites of the other 136. Whilst the research team undertook the ‘follow up’ study, we needed volunteers from different parts of England and Wales to collect the data for the ‘tracing’ study. Further details can be found on the project website and a chapter on the methodological challenges of undertaking ‘revisiting’ studies can be found in Miriam Bernard and Tom Scharf (2007) Critical Perspectives on Ageing Studies, The Policy Press. A book will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009.

The second project developed from the earlier work on significant events in old age. As part of the ESRC New Dynamics of Ageing programme, my colleague Liz Lloyd, was successful in the second call in securing a 3¼ year grant from November 2007-January 2011. The topic is maintaining dignity in old age. It is in its very early stages and we are co-operating with colleagues from the Department of Social Medicine and the University of Nottingham. My current Senior Research Fellowship ends in July 2009 and I hope that this commitment will form the basis for another two year period taking me to July 2011, by which time I will be in my mid-70s.

The British Society of Gerontology has not so far featured in this profile. I have been a member for many years and was one of the planning group for the successful 1997 conference, where we broke the mould by holding it in a downtown conference hotel. It was only after retirement in 2001 and the removal of major administrative and management responsibilities that I began to be more active and was elected on to the Executive Committee in 2003 and re-elected in 2006.

I have taken some interest in the international links of the Society (reflecting the sustained interest I have had in European Union issues over the last 30 years) and have argued with others for more responsiveness by the social gerontology academic community to official consultation documents and calls for evidence. However, more recently, my main involvement has been one of the links between the Bristol planning group for the 2008 BSG conference (to be held on 4-6 September 2008 at the University of the West of England) and the Executive Committee of the Society. The theme of the conference is Sustainable Futures in an Ageing World and one of my responsibilities is to organise a symposium on Involving Older People in Research, a fitting role for an active member in his seventies.

Apart from the university based work and the British Society of Gerontology, I have been a trustee of Age Concern Bristol (ACB) for some years. My main role is to organise, with the help of ACB and Brunelcare staff, the quarterly meetings of a Research Forum, whose purpose is to offer the results of sound research about older people to reflective practitioners and campaigners. Members of this Forum come from the local government and NHS sectors, voluntary bodies and the private sector, as well as academe.

One of the things I look back on with some satisfaction is being at the interface between academic endeavour and the world of policy and practice. I do not know whether I have made a difference, but I have enjoyed trying.

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