Growing Old with the Welfare State

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Growing Old with the Welfare State challenges these stereotypes by bringing together eight previously unpublished stories of ordinary British people born between 1925 and 1945 to show contemporary ageing in a new light.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.

Autorentext

Nick Hubble is Reader in English at Brunel University, UK. He has published extensively on contemporary literature and culture and is the author of Mass Observation and Everyday Life (2010).

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 at Brunel University, UK. He has published numerous books, including Zadie Smith (2009), Writers Talk (2008), and Well Done God! Selected Prose and Drama of B. S. Johnson, (2013).

Inhalt

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
6. 'Life is better than I could ever have imagined as a child' - Joy Warren
7. 'An apprentice old dear'- Randall Jenkins
   9: 'Politicians need to chat up the older generation' - Brenda Allen
8. 'The young do not have exclusive rights to love and happiness' - Joanna Woods
   Afterword.
   Appendix: FCMAP, MO and the U3A