Recycled Teenagers - the sequel!

Posted By: Susan Emmott
Date Posted: 11/07/2007

I just felt I had to put pen to paper (or more accurately fingers to keyboard) to say how much I enjoyed the recent councillor diary from my colleague Robin Parker.

Robin asks a very pertinent question. Just how do we perceive older people?

I think for many of us, our perception of older people often comes from the older people we knew best in our lives – our own grandparents. In my case, all my grandparents were born in the first decade of the last century, so they grew up with music hall, black and white films, national service, tea dances and the like. But, today the reality is very different.

Think about the following………..

The 20-year-old Teddy Boy in 1957, dancing to “Rock around the Clock”, with his brothel creepers, drainpipes and drape jacket is now 70 years old.

The 19-year-old Mod Girl in 1963, with her wedge haircut, Mary Quant dress and clinging on to the back of her boyfriend’s scooter is now 63 years old.

Yes, the Teds, the Mods and the Rockers are already drawing their pensions. In the next decade they will be joined by Hippies, Skinheads and Glam Rockers. And yes, not long after that we will have the phenomenon of the Punk Pensioner!

As Robin says, Age Concern classes anyone over 50 to be an old person (so I’m included then!), so in their eyes the 20-year-old with spiky hair, bondage trousers, and safety pins through his nose, pogo-ing to the Sex Pistols in the Punk Summer of ’77 is already an old person.

So, yes, we really do need to think about how we view older people and how services are designed for them. And of course, the best way to do that is to properly consult with them.