Ageing 3 - Physical & Psychological Change

When you are pregnant there are huge physical, mental & emotional changes. The same thing is true with ageing. The body is a truly amazing system, but like a car engine, it wears out through time & constant use. Skin thins and becomes less elastic and more fragile. Fatty tissue just below the skin decreases. Wrinkles appear. Your image of yourself is completely different, but internally you think you are the same person. Your organs & muscles start to fail. Bones shrink & weaken. Memory & thinking becomes less reliable. You can't hear or see as well. The Mayo Clinic gives much more detail - https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/healthy-aging/in-depth/aging/art-20046070

There are huge psychological changes to deal with too, often causing low self esteem, anxiety, depression & frustration. It isn't easy to adjust to role & lifestyle changes, grief at the loss of partners & friends, family relationship problems etc.

Such massive change can result in the necessity for a huge adjustment from the individual. You lose control & independence by degrees. There is frustration at not being able to do things you previously could. You have to rely much more on other people to help. Ultimately you may need daily social or nursing care.

Some people are lucky. It's a bit of a lottery. My father, who smoked Capstan full strength from early teenage years & lived to be 88, was very fit until he was diagnosed with cancer in his 80's. He reckoned not to know what a headache or backache was. Others develop chronic conditions very early on in their lives.

I was part of what is called the "baby boomers" &  "sandwich generation", who physically and financially supported both their children and their parents, as well as juggling jobs and careers. It was very high stress at a time when I had anticipated being able to focus on myself, my husband & my professional career.

My generation remember grandparents being cared for by their immediate family. We also felt a strong responsibility to care for our parents, but even then most women worked, so it was very difficult. Especially as families were much more geographically dispersed than previously. The world has moved on & attitudes have changed. I think that we have to question whether family responsibility for their elderly is  possible or even desirable or practical  today. Actually I for one would not want to live with my daughter & her family. I value my own space, routines & indepedence. I value the peace of my life. 

Ageing in one form or other comes to us all. So you would think that we would be prepared for it. Even more importantly, you would think that our politicians would have planned for the impact of ageing on the health & social care system decades ago. After all demographic trends are known well in advance from birthrate statistics. But our political system isn't geared to long term planning & policy implementation.

Over 30% of  people over 65 live alone in the UK. Roughly a third of those are lonely. 40% of people over 65 have chronic conditions. Unless we address the problems of old age properly & fund solutions these statistics will not improve. It's in the interests of everyone to push hard for change. 

Ageing 2 - Having a Plan

A friend has just lent me Joan Bakewell's book "The Tick of Two Clocks". It isn't the first time she has written about ageing. She is a reflective, engaging & honest author. We in the UK don't interact enough with the ageing demographic. We certainly don't care for our elderly effectively & sympathetically. Elder care isn't just repeatedly kicked into the long grass, it's buried in jungle growth. We need action not "lip service".

There is research showing the best countries for the elderly to live in. According to Age UK the top 5 are Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland & Australia. The UK comes 17th. https://www.ageukmobility.co.uk/mobility-news/article/what-is-the-best-country-to-live-for-older-people

The UK has a tradition of Philanthropists who gave substantial sums of their money for housing the poor & elderly - Peabody, Rowntree, Cadbury, Guinness, Hill & Whiteley for example. Especially Victorians. Credit Suisse in 2021 show there are approximately 685,500 Britons in the richest 1%, with a total wealth of $3.4 trillion (£2.8 trillion). In comparison, approximately 48 million Britons, 70 per cent of the population, have a total wealth of $2.9 trillion (£2.4 billion). Where are the British philanthropists alleviating conditions for the poor, sick & elderly today ?

Individually many of us don't prepare for a possible long life either. It is, after all, our own responsibility, regardless of whether we have family, friends or neighbours to help. Willingness to help doesn't override the fact that people's lives today are complex & very busy. Social Care in the UK is at best hugely variable in accessibility or affordableness. At worst it simply isn't available if you can't afford to pay for it. 

I've come to the conclusion, as someone who is fortunate, that I have to "future proof" my life. I have to plan for possibly 5 more years of life. Average female life expectancy in the UK is 83. 

I have deliberately moved house since being widowed from a very rural hamlet to a city & then to a much smaller, more manageable, house. Accessibility to transport, services & infrastructure is important when you age. My current house is adapted so that I could, if necessary, live on the ground floor. I have a will & POA in place. Paperwork is kept reasonably up to date so my only child won't have the mess I had to deal with when my parents & parents in law died. Not to mention the mess my husband left. I am computer literate so could organise my whole life from my front room if I was housebound. I have a telephone alarm wristband in case I have an accident in my home. I'm not afraid of dying, but I don't fancy how my mother in law died - a fall in the shower & no one knew how long she had been on the floor before her hairdresser found her. Fortunately the hairdresser called the police. I have a Keysafe outside.

The thing is you have to face the inevitable - you are going to die. I know people who won't write a will. I know people who left it too late to downsize & sort out the accumulated detritus of a life. I know people who won't go to see a doctor when they should & justify it by saying they "don't want to bother the GP". I know people who are isolated, depressed, unwell & afraid. I also know people who are active, outgoing, acepting of ageing & great to be with.

Growing old can be the ending of a rich & full life. But it can also be no fun at all. It is a choice & we each have to make it. The thing is many people need support to do that & frankly it isn't here in the UK . 

That is our governments political choice & has been for years now despite numerous white papers, committees & reports. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/social-care-360

 

Reflections on Ageing - 2023

Recently I have finally admitted to myself that I am old. Possibly having Covid really badly last Autumn is a factor in that. Also the fact that I have been widowed & living alone for 14 years now.

As I have aged I have had to adjust to the normal ageing that everyone experiences to some degree or other, both mental and physical. Nothing prepares you for this. It’s like having a baby, you can’t possibly anticipate what’s involved in the whole process until you experience it. In my case ageing has been complicated by the fact that I have had several chronic health conditions for decades.

I have changed as I have aged. I have become less emotional & volatile. Less black & white in my thinking. Calmer & more accepting. There is no point in fighting things that cannot be changed, like being solitary, being unable to do many things you once took for granted, being reliant on other people to do things that you can no longer do.

The decline in physical & mental capability is frustrating. Your independence ebbs away. If you are fortunate you can pay people to do the things that you cannot. So I have a regular cleaner & gardener. Intermittently I need various trades people. One of the frustrations is that it isn’t just a question of affordability. You have to be prepared to wait, often quite a long time for them to be available. I used to be someone who wanted things to be done yesterday. Now I patiently wait & relinquish any control. I find it really hard to ask family or friends for help. They have busy lives of their own & most of my real friends live a long way away. Certainly there are no neighbours I could rely on.

Ageing has led to introspection & reflection. I think this happens to most old people. I look back & understand the things that I could have done better. I do think that I did the best I could at the time, but that sometimes wasn’t good enough because I didn’t have the experience that I do now.

I now understand that my younger self was very wrapped up in my husband & child, my professional career, my social life. Life was extremely busy, there weren’t enough hours in the day. At times it was quite stressful keeping all the plates spinning. I find myself thinking about my elderly parents & parents in law. I feel that if I had known what I know now about being old & alone I could have been more understanding & helpful, although it was complicated by the fact that they lived over a hundred miles away.

Society has changed a lot in my lifetime, possibly more in the South East than other areas in the UK. I was born the year the second world war ended. Coming from a working class background in Birmingham to being middle class in Oxford has been a difficult adjustment. Behaviour & expectations are very different here, now, to the way I was brought up.

Getting old is not easy in the UK. Many old people are isolated, lonely & infirm. Our society does not care for, or respect, it’s aged in the way that may other countries do. I’m thinking of Mediterranean countries, Scandinavian countries & Japan & China for instance.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/our-impact/policy-research/loneliness-research-and-resources/

http://data.ageuk.org.uk/loneliness-maps/england-2016/

Demographics mean that the problems associated with ageing are going to increase. We need to be better at dealing with them. 

 

House Moving & Renovation

Tomorrow, the 21st May, is the 2 year anniversary of completion on the selling of my previous house & buying of the 1930's dump that I have renovated & extended over the period. It all took a lot longer & cost a lot more than it should have done. A combination of Brexit, Covid & the Ukraine war caused huge supply chain issues. I also felt my builder could have been a lot better organised & had a much closer eye on the ball. (But he is a really nice man & that's worth a lot in the building trade). The UK building trade doesn't have a very good reputation in comparison with Germany & Scandinavia for example. Eastern European trades are far better trained & valued & have an amazing work ethic.

I was lucky & had a good rental. But the cost of storage & rent was huge, so I moved into my house while the builders were still working in March 2022. It was all a bit of a nightmare looking back. I have always wanted to build my own house. This was the closest I am likely to come to doing it. 

The first house my husband & I bought had had a sucession of army tenants & was also in a fairly dreadful state, but not as bad as this. I actually physically did quite a bit of the work on that. The third house we owned had to be completely reconfigured inside & we built a very big extension on that too, while still living there. I tiled a whole bathroom in that. That went well over time too, but fortunately the price was fixed. The next house we owned had a massive water escape from the loft while we were on holiday abroad & two thirds of the house with everything in it was destroyed. We managed to live in one third of the house though. It took months to even dry out before building could begin. Then the Insurers builders did a really bad job of renovation & it all had to be done again. So it took a year in all & cost a fortune. Fortunately not my fortune!

I have always been able to think 3 dimensionally & see the potential in houses. So when I came to do this project on my own I knew what I was doing & what it might be like. However it was worse than anticipated. I seemed to be continually fire fighting & problem solving. I'm reasonably good at research, sourcing fixtures & fittings etc & organisation. But I didn't anticipate having to be as hands on in the actual building process & virtually project manage. It's not part of my skill set.

I'm glad I did it & I love my house. I am quite proud of what I have achieved. It isn't something I would want to repeat though. Looking back it definitely took it's toll on me physically & emotionally. I doubt that I could repeat the process now. But who knows? 

We don't know what we are capable of until we do it.

 

Money & Economics

One of the worst things about being a widow is total responsibility for everything that is involved in running a life & home today - No one to share the jobs with. The absolute bane of my life is money & everything associated with it. I always put off reconciling my bank statements & switching insurances. When you know that your time available is diminishing by the hour, you resent even more having to do jobs that you hate.

Translating my complex but relatively simple economic reality to UK & world economics is utterly baffling. In the last weeks & months we have had the funeral of the Queen, the coronation of the King, Eurovision, sending arms to Ukraine, multiple costly strikes, the earthquake response, expensive public enquiries....All of which total millions even billions of taxpayers money. There may not be a "magic money tree", but this government do seem to find money from somewhere to fund expensive & sometimes questionable expenditure. 

We must have contingency funds for vital support for dire events at home & worldwide. But I really do question the cost benefit analysis that seems to justify spending 125 million $ on the coronation ceremony alone. The three day event, including the concert cost far more. The argument is always that these events, like Eurovision, generate a lot of tourist income. I'm sure they do, but my maths skills aren't up to understanding how that is calculated or whether it is justifiable in the current circumstances.

The bottom line for me is that millions in the UK live in unsuitable accommodation, (3.6 million children, 9.2 million working age adults and 2 million pensioners), or are homeless (271,000 at least in Jan 2023 including 123,000 children). The statistics for food bank use in the UK are shocking. In 2022/23 approximately 2.99 million people used a foodbank in the United Kingdom. Not just the unemployed, but working poor.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/

It is hard not to blame our government who have been in power for 13 years. The whole point of government is that they have the Civil Service & huge numbers of advisors & researchers with access to information that we don't have. They are in a position to make decisions & plan for the long term future using reliable information. In housing, for example they know demographic trends years in advance. Yet the UK has consistantly failed to provide enough housing for it's citizens. 

They knew that experts warned of a pandemic years befor it happened, but were totally unprepared for it.

Ukraine has effectively been on a war footing with Russia since 2014 when Russia took over Crimea, but a report in 2019 said the conservatives had cut MOD spending by 25% while in power.

Our so called democracy is based on governments who don't take the long view & look at the consequences of actions. They depend on focus groups to tell them what is likely to get them re-elected & that is their main driver. Once politicians have power, they want to keep it at any cost. Just look at Turkey today if you don't believe that.

The simple fact is that the rich are getting richer & the poor are getting poorer & the gap between the two is increasing all the time. The UK has a very high level of income inequality compared to other developed countries.It's a recipe for disaster.

 

https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk

 

Coronation - Inherited Wealth & Position in the 21st Century

I'm looking forward to watching the Coronation with some friends. I don't feel particularly strongly about royalty or republicanism, but I don't believe in inherited wealth & position. I do feel that we should move into the 21st century & not spend over £350 million of taxpayers money on a 3 day extravaganza. A YouGov survey found 51 per cent of adults agree with me that the ceremony should not be funded by public money, especially given the economic realities we face today.

There are currently 12 monarchies in Europe. Eleven of these are constitutional monarchies while one, (the Vatican City State), is a theocratic, elective, monarchy ruled by the Pope. 10 of these monarchies are hereditary. Seven are kingdoms, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK, Spain & the Netherlands. Belgium,  Andorra (semi elective), Liechtenstein & Monaco are principalities, while Luxemburg is a Grand Duchy.  We are the only European monarchy that still crowns their kings or queens. 

The origin of kingship in Europe goes back to tribal systems in prehistoric Europe. The alternative is republican forms of government, where executive power is in the hands of elected leaders instead of  hereditary succession. There are 16 European parliamentary republics - Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia & Malta.

I don't feel we should be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". But I do feel that the death of Queen Elizabeth is an opportunity to completely re-evaluate how we run UK Plc. Tradition is all very well, but we need to consider how much of it is appropriate now. Some sort of "cost benefit analysis" seems like a good idea. Attitudes & demographics have changed enormously. 

Britain, more than any other European country I can think of, is still rooted in the class system, which is exemplified by the monarchy & our traditions. I just don't think that is necessarily a good thing any more. We should be more of a meritocracy where what you can contribute, your skills, your education & experience, matter more than your wealth, your networks & your birth. 

Until we really look at that & decide what we want to be as a nation we won't reach our full potential & we will continue to decline.