Margaret Thatcher: immortalised or patronised on screen?

Nana Wereko-Brobby,  Editor, 25

The Iron Lady, a biopic on the life of Margaret Thatcher, has attracted a great deal of criticism in the short time it’s been out. David Cameron was quick to question the morality of making the film whilst she is still alive. A host of  critics felt she was portrayed not as a great public figure but as ‘ an old woman who can’t quite remember who she used to be’, and therefore somehow patronised by the film. Everyone had something to say in the press and a lot of it was negative. Great performances aside, some felt that this film simply shouldn’t have been made. Yet.

To Drink or Not to Drink: the age old question…

Nana Wereko-Brobby, Editor, 25

It is officially winter and a time when the natural impulse is to eat more, drink more, sleep more, and wait for the return of spring. Thermal underwear sales go up and the mulled wine is generously ladled out. Seasonal clichés aside, there is also pressure on us to think about our health, up the old vitamin intake and look after ourselves in a bid to fight the inevitable winter colds. And in no group is winter health more important than the elderly population.

At what age is it acceptable to pen your autobiography?

Nana Wereko-Brobby, Editor, 25

‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’, says the teacher to his student, as he rests his feet on his mahogany desk and muses on a life peppered with success, failure, drama, tragedy and a thousand good stories to tell. It tends to be a given that, whether Sir Michael Caine or Steve the postman, once you reach a ripe old age you will have some stories to tell. As an astute Jewish Care client noted this week, when you’re old you spend you’re time looking back, “what becomes important are your memories”.

And better still, there’s an audience willing to pay for these stories.

Get Giving: the new face of public donations

Nana Wereko-Brobby, Editor,25

On this morning’s Today programme, Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, talked about new initiatives to get the public donating time and money to charities. After years of ‘flat-lining’, a white paper has been written that lays out innovative ways for people to reconsider the whole charitable giving process, highlighting ways in which they can integrate giving into their lives (without the inconvenience of having to scale a mountain or give up chocolate).

So what were these new ideas and can we envisage them working? First on the agenda was ‘cash machine giving’, where people could give to charity every time they use bank cards at cash machines or at shops. This scheme already works in Colombia.

The second scheme discussed was a ‘round-up-the-pound’ scheme. When paying for something with a credit or debit card, for example at the supermarket, you can round up the price to the nearest pound and the surplus goes to charity.

Finished at Fifty: Being young, being old and being stuck in the middle

Nana Wereko-Brobby, Editor, 25

On Monday the BBC aired ‘Finished at Fifty?’, a Panorama documentary following four jobless 50-somethings who, after many years of employment, are now faced with a lack of prospects and finding it impossible to get a job.

The media lens has been firmly focussed on the plight of graduates in the wake of the recession, faced with bleak job opportunities and unappealing university costs if they are to return to stydying. However, for those in their 50s, too young to retire and suffering the effects of lay-offs, the situation is bleak. Whilst we worry about our ageing society and the prospect of lengthy retirements for the economy to support, it is easy to forget about those who need and want to work, but are deemed less appealing than their younger, more competitive and tech-savvy counterparts.

Fiona Phillips, former presenter of GMTV (50) had little trouble finding another job after she left. However, as the programme points out, if you lose your job at 55, there’s a strong risk you’re never work again….

Everybody’s talking about: Face Value

Nana Wereko-Brobby, Editor, 25

The media is making bold efforts to highlight society’s prejudice based on looks, but where does age prejudice come into it?

Last night Channel 4 aired the programme ‘Katie: My Beautiful Face’, the extraordinary story of model Katie Piper who was scarred for life in 2008 when an ex-boyfriend arranged for her to be doused in acid. She was left blind in one eye and had to endure hours of operations to rebuild the skin on her face. She remains disfigured but with an inspiring outlook on life that has led to her setting up her own charity, the Katie Piper Foundation, which helps people come to terms with disfigurement and also raises money for post-operative treatment. On a personal level, the programme goes some way into looking at how she continues to deal with her own issues. In a spoiler at the end, Katie is en route to a date and amusingly points out on that this is the first date where she wasn’t totally sure he would fancy the pants off her; she frankly no longer considers her looks a freedom pass.

Advanced Style: Older Style Icons for London Fashion Week

Nana Wereko-Brobby, contributing editor, 24

Whilst cameras point to the juvenile stars of London Fashion Week, it’s nice to know that some people in the fashion world are focussing their lenses on some older beauties.

Lynn, 78. Photos taken by Ari Seth Cohen for Vogue Japan.

London Fashion Week is underway and the nation readies itself for a week where innovative designs, new body shapes and sharply defined features are all up for discussion. With this comes the expected, and mostly unoriginal, media backlash: models are too thin, too white, too young.

There is no question that this is an industry in which youth is a highly prized commodity. Kate Moss was discovered at the elfin age of 14 and was on the cover of The Face by 16. Gemma Ward was featured in Australian Fashion Week aged 15 and already a Vogue ‘It Girl‘ by 16.

But in the last decade, as model as celebrity (and vice versa) has continued to flourish, we have witnessed former models coming back into the spotlight in their 40s, 50s, and even 60s. Twiggy’s M&S adverts, Madonna’s 2010 D&G campaign and Jerry Hall’s continuing successful career (despite the pesky appearance of her 17 year old daughter on the scene) is testament to slowly changing attitudes about beauty and age.

That said, these are celebrities and their beauty is mostly being celebrated despite their age. The question is, where are the  role models whose beauty is being recognised and captured on camera in their advanced years? We’re not talking about sentimental and patronising shots of older people with their ‘heads held high’ on a billboard for some government campaign. We’re talking full on glamour, beauty and enviable poise from a set of older models who, to cringingly coin a Tyra phrase, look ‘fierce’.

Enter the edgy contender in this photographic field, fashion blogger Ari Seth Cohen. A New York based photographer and writer, Cohen’s blog Advanced Style documents the beauty of striking older men and women.

Dementia Patients: The Only Way to Treat Them is to Their Heart’s Desire

Chase McAllister- Olivarius, Freelance Writer

This week, it seemed no good news would come out of Arizona, which on Saturday morning saw a 22 year old gunman open fire on a crowd that had gathered outside a grocery store in Tuscon, killing 6 people, including a federal judge and a 9 year old girl, and gravely injuring a further 13.  His object was the assassination of Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the first Jew to be elected to federal office in Arizona.  Despite early, erroneous reports that the assassin, Jared Lee Loughner, had succeeded in slaying Giffords, who was an ardent supporter of Obama’s health care bill and who narrowly won a third term last November, the Arizona congresswoman is in fact alive – though in critical condition – after being shot through the head at point blank range.

While our eyes our riveted on Tuscon and we pray for Giffords’ recovery, elsewhere in Arizona – at Beatitudes, an elderly care facility outside Phoenix – doctors are also struggling to save their patients’ brains from being ravaged by dementia.  Though their efforts are less dramatic than those being made on behalf of Congresswoman Giffords’ health, they are perhaps more innovative and no less significant.

Margaret Nance’s experience of dementia, the toll it took on her, and the kind of care she needed at first sounds like a cautionary tale.  At 96 years old, Nance was cantankerous, anxious, often opposed to eating, and prone to lose her temper.  Her tenure at previous nursing homes often concluded with her assaulting staff members and fellow patients.  But, writes the New York Times, “when Beatitudes nursing home agreed to an urgent plea to accept her, all that changed.”

The Battle of Ideas: ‘Ageing and Medicine: Quality versus Quantity’

Nana Wereko-Brobby, Jewish Care

In the run up to the launch of our Pearls of Wisdom campaign, we spent Saturday at The Battle of Ideas festival at the Royal College of Art, London, where big thinkers from a range of  fields debated topical issues facing society today. Our ageing society was high on the agenda.

The most engaging talk of the day (well for us)  was ‘Ageing and Medicine: Quality versus Quantity’. Now that we are living longer and are faced with a lengthy retirement period, there is a new focus on ensuring quality of life and making these years count. The discussion focussed on the increasing importance of quality of life and ‘well-being’. It’s not just about longevity, but how we spend these years and what sort of place in society we continue to occupy in later years. Is it enough to just keep breathing or is it fair to expect a richer lifestyle? Do older people want to be seen as ‘old dears’ or valued for their experiences and opinions?