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The combined effect of the welfare state and medical advances means that more people now live longer lives than ever before in history. As a consequence, the experience of ageing has been transformed. Yet our cultural and social perceptions of ageing remain governed by increasingly dated images and narratives.
Growing Old with the Welfare State challenges these stereotypes by bringing together eight previously unpublished stories of ordinary British people born between 1925 and 1945 to show contemporary ageing in a new light. These biographical narratives, six of which were written as part of the Mass Observation Project, reflect on and compare the experience of living in two post-war periods of social change, after the first and second world wars.
In doing so, these stories, along with their accompanying contextual chapters, provide a valuable and accessible resource for social historians, and expose both historical and contemporary views of age and ageing that challenge modern assumptions.
List of contents
Introduction
Part I. The Interwar Generation
1. Backgrounds
2. ‘To me, life and work are linked’ - Ivy Miller
3. ‘I never stopped learning all my life’ - George Borrows
4. ‘Mine has been a privileged generation’ - Ron Turpin
5. ‘People assume the elderly aren’t interested in sex’- Amy Saunders
Part II. The Wartime Generation
6: Backgrounds
7. ‘Life is better than I could ever have imagined as a child’ - Joy Warren
8. ‘An apprentice old dear’- Randall Jenkins
9: ‘Politicians need to chat up the older generation’ - Brenda Allen
10. ‘The young do not have exclusive rights to love and happiness’ - Joanna Woods
Afterword.
Appendix: FCMAP, MO and the U3A
About the author
Nick Hubble is Professor of Modern and Contemporary English at Brunel University London, UK and the co-editor of The Science Fiction Handbook (2013), The 1970s (2014), The 1990s (2015), The 2000s (2015), The 1950s (2018), The 1930s (2021), The 2010s (2024) and London in Contemporary British Fiction (2016) all published by Bloomsbury.Jennie Taylor completed her PhD in History at the University of Sydney, Australia, and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Brunel University, UK. She has published on Mass Observation and leisure.Philip Tew is Professor of English (Post-1900 Literature) at Brunel University, UK, Director of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing and Director of the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies. His many publications as both author and editor include Reading Zadie Smith: The First Decade and Beyond (Bloomsbury, 2013) and (co-edited with Emily Horton and Leigh Wilson) The 1980s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2014).
Summary
The combined effect of the welfare state and medical advances means that more people now live longer lives than ever before in history. As a consequence, the experience of ageing has been transformed. Yet our cultural and social perceptions of ageing remain governed by increasingly dated images and narratives.
Growing Old with the Welfare State challenges these stereotypes by bringing together eight previously unpublished stories of ordinary British people born between 1925 and 1945 to show contemporary ageing in a new light. These biographical narratives, six of which were written as part of the Mass Observation Project, reflect on and compare the experience of living in two post-war periods of social change, after the first and second world wars.
In doing so, these stories, along with their accompanying contextual chapters, provide a valuable and accessible resource for social historians, and expose both historical and contemporary views of age and ageing that challenge modern assumptions.
Foreword
Records and provides insight into British 20th century cultural life through eight biographical accounts by ordinary people.
Additional text
This rare use of individual narratives provides new and rich insights into the ageing process and how, as we age, we make not only our own but, also, collective history.This revealing narrative account successfully weaves individual life stories with the broad sweep of political and cultural history, and is essential reading for those interested in ageing and the welfare state.
