Roy Hattersley on a Motorbike?

I don’t often agree with Roy Hattersley – usually, he talks bunkum – however his piece in the Times today, is one with which I concur.

I’d sooner ride a motorbike than get into time’s wingèd bathchair, so why stereotype me as elderly?

Quite so. My father is a septuagenarian and is still riding a motorcycle – certainly he is not ready for the bathchair. My mother in law is still whizzing about the south west selling stuff at antiques fairs and teaching music well into her eighties.

The point Roy makes is very much that being older, elderly, a senior citizen or whatever euphemism is used, does not mean that those people are ready to be patronised by the government and treated as if they are all ga-ga and need “help”.

Forty years ago few things would have given me more pleasure than the thought that Joan Bakewell took an interest in my welfare. But now I am by no means sure that I welcome her concern. I make no complaint about the way she discharges her duties as “czar for the elderly”, a strange designation that in itself suggests something contrived is going on.

It is the creation of her office that troubles me. Whatever the perennially youthful Dame Joan may say and do, her public role helps to create the impression that, without help, nobody over 65 can take the top off a boiled egg. No matter how sensible her advice about the underrated potential of the over-65s, the existence of someone who “speaks on behalf of the old” creates the wrong impression among the younger generation.

Quite so. The creation of “Czars” is downright silly. We no more need an age czar than we need a drugs czar or a dance czar. Also, the idea that having reached a certain age means that people can be conveniently lumped into a homogeneous group is equally ridiculous. We all get older and we are all individuals with differing needs, opinions, lifestyles and aspirations. We don’t suddenly become the same when we hit retirement age and we don’t need czars any more than the Russians did…