One of the joys of being old is that you can remember being younger. Those who are younger, like John Harris (Opinion, 5 August), can only imagine being older, and, like most imaginings, his is romantic. He imagines choosing to hobble down the road to drink his slow half. But as a fairly healthy 70-plus, I can tell him that you don’t choose to hobble. In my case it might so far be limited to taking the stairs one tread at a time instead of two, having to pre-plan crouching down, or failing with monotonous regularity to remember names. But it gives me enough of a peek into the future to know I might not like it at all. I might still be hale and hearty like Denis Healey at 90, or perhaps not. I have just witnessed the trauma of a friend losing both very elderly parents after caring for them through their increasingly serious illnesses. It’s not nice and it’s not fair. So, if I had a choice to be that sort of a burden or not to be, I hope I’d have the courage to consider the alternatives.
Bob Owen
Sherborne, Dorset
• I agree with John Harris about old age. At 72 I can potter and enjoy reading him and Michele Hanson and others at my leisure. My father at 93 is bedbound and in a nursing home but I have heard him talking and chortling to himself – his sense of humour still somewhere there with the memory loss and confusion of dementia. He asked me recently what job I do now so I said, happily: “You are my job.” The job is a rollercoaster of change in need and care to achieve the best arrangements possible. What better job? Yes, there are managers, systems and procedures to deal with, but also meeting a lot of nice, caring people.
Christine Dixon
London
• Beautiful balanced piece. As aged parents with five adopted young people with disabilities, aged 10 to 35, we are fortunate to feel that we still have something to contribute. Maybe on reflection it is more that we have five dependent people to fight for.
Lindsey and Dave Wharam
Cromer, Norfolk
