Eighteen months ago BSG highlighted the folly of arbitrarily designating everyone aged over 70 to be ‘vulnerable’. The statement to the government on COVID-19 has recently been followed up by work from U3A and the Centre for Ageing Better who have produced a toolkit for challenging such ageism. Other organisations, such as Age UK, have been monitoring the mental and physical effects of the restrictions on people in later life. As a member of the 70+ cohort myself, leader of a number of exercise groups for older adults and director of a charity which supports people affected by dementia, I have been attempting to record our experiences of this extraordinary time.
I wondered if there would be interest amongst fellow gerontologists, especially those 70+, in pulling together perceptions of life under lockdown, and possibly also the effects experienced when emerging from it, with a view to producing an autoethnography reflecting the lived experience of BSG members. The resultant document might provide a timely, perhaps historic, record, as we celebrate our 50th anniversary.
Please contact Sue Stuart sastuart@globalnet.co.uk