I found my first grey hair the other day and it reminded me of a cartoon in Punch. Two ancient people were sitting in those high-backed chairs you only ever see in care homes – the kind with wings at the side to stop you falling out if you have an unexpected seizure.
The elderly pair were clearly in some ghastly depot for the decrepit and on a perpetual diet of mashed banana. "Just think," said one old buffer to the other, "if we hadn't given up smoking and drinking we would have missed all this."

It has always made me laugh but each year less and less as I too head inexorably for a life where trousers with an elasticised waistband seem like a good idea if only I could remember where I had put them. The last UK census showed that the British population is ageing rapidly. For the first time in history there are now more people over 60 than there are children in this green and pleasant land.

Of course you wouldn't know this if you watch television. Television executives live in a Never-Never Land where presenters have an upper age limit of 12, programmes are about winning money with only the minimal degree of education and in between everyone stands around in leather bikinis drinking vodka with cranberry juice. The latest BBC channel to be launched, BBC Three, is aimed entirely at the 16-25 age market, ignoring the fact that it is shrinking faster than anyone can say "Big Brother wants you in the diary room".

The government too seems happy to collude with this mythical world of eternal youth. Current pension provisions mean that 2 million retired men and women are living in households with income below the official poverty line. There are certain top-ups one can apply for but they are all means-tested and sufficiently complex to allow the government to look good while managing to keep most of the money. My grandmother receives about £80 a week as her state pension and lives in a very nice care home which costs about £500 a week. Even at 94 she can do the maths. What she can't do is go and make up the shortfall by working behind the till at B&Q. Fortunately she has a supportive family who are able to assist. Granny's pension is low because she is a single female and spent her life working for her family and the local community, for which there are no National Insurance contributions. She worked all her life and doesn't have anything to show for it. For lots of elderly people, particularly women, money is a problem.

My grandmother receives about £80 a week as her state pension and lives in a very nice home which costs about £500 a week. Even at 94 she can do the maths

Then there are the homes. Retirement Valhallas are not always cheerful places. In many of the state-run homes you have to love linoleum a lot to want to live there, and that's only if you can get in. The private ones are usually better but they are in the business of making money. Consequently no distinction is made between clients like my grandmother, who may not be able to run a marathon but can still do Olympic mental push-ups, and those clients who only speak to ask if they've already had their lunch.

She and I sit in the lounge of the home trying to chat while the woman in the next chair keeps asking why no one has done anything about the doodlebugs and down the end an old dear pours her tea into her handbag. Granny has a nice room and receives the physical care that she needs however I can't help but feel that the whole thing must be a depressing experience. Not as depressing, of course, as having nowhere to go at all, which may be the future for the rest of us.

There is a kind of demographic time bomb set to go off within my lifetime but you would be hard pushed to find anyone in charge who recognises it. In 1951 there were 200,000 people in the UK over the age of 85. Now there are 1.1 million and growing. We live longer and for more than 50 years, thank God, we have not had the population decimation which occurred during the two world wars.

Source

Housing Today

Postscript

Sandi Toksvig is a comedian and author