We believe being self reliant is important, sometimes

we’ve got to just get on with things, but unfortunately this is not always

possible.

Sometimes we find young people in groups quite intimidating, but many of us want spaces and places where older

and younger people can meet.

The Elders Council is the voluntary older people’s forum in Newcastle and works with agencies, organisations and individuals to ensure that the views of the over 50s are taken into account by decision-makers in Newcastle.

Working with Northumbria University, Newcastle University and Skimstone Arts, the Elders Council has run a series of workshops to engage older people in conversation about what we can do to give ourselves the best chance of retaining our independence, and what we think should be available in our homes and neighbourhoods to support us to age well. In 2025, almost one in every four people in the UK will be aged over 651, so this is a conversation we need to be having now. In 2012, 37% of people aged 65 and over in Newcastle lived alone, and 29% of people in that age group provided care and support to a relative or friend. Indeed ‘older people spend more time in their immediate neighbourhood compared to any other generational group’2. Such statistics raise critical questions such as, whose responsibility is it to secure all our futures, our individual and collective older age, and how do we build bridges between looking after each other and getting more formal support?

We have had vibrant conversations about these critical issues with 22 people aged between 50 and 90, living in the Fenham/Wingrove area of Newcastle. The participants drew on their range of backgrounds, experiences, issues, coping strategies, and individual and community resources to tell us what has helped them to grow old in their home and their neighbourhood.

The following 12 statements reflect the issues coming out of these conversations so far. What can you do to respond to these issues? How can you support older people to be involved in the setting up and delivery of the services they need to stay put and stay well?

We need good and up to date information about everything! The internet can be a good start and increasingly we are getting online very successfully. However, well informed people in the community who know their way around

the system and can point us in the right direction are vital.

We value the people we meet in shops, on

the streets, going about their daily work (such as the Rington’s tea man, the ‘postie’); regular familiar faces are

important to us.

We need to get the balance right between being a good neighbour and helping those around us, but also not doing so much that it becomes a burden.

This is becoming more important as people are living in their own homes for longer, so there are much frailer older neighbours in our communities.

We enjoy helping people but it’s not always easy to ask for help for ourselves. It can

be hard accepting that a little help is needed.

We think having places to go and community groups to get involved

with helps us keep in touch and makes Fenham a vibrant place to live, particularly the Faith groups, the FAR Centre, Fenham swimming pool, the library, the allotments

and many more. Cultural differences such as speaking a different language, or

needing gender specific facilities, can make it hard to access some activities.

We find getting to places can be challenging. We need affordable, reliable and accessible transport or a community bus. These aren’t always ‘older people

friendly’, even the lack of dropped kerbs can stop us going places.

We need to start planning for the future, earlier in life. Will the house we live in now be suitable

for our needs as we get older? It’s not easy knowing when, how and why to plan but we need ongoing

conversations to help us plan.

Taking care of the look and feel of Fenham is up to

everyone, from picking up litter, to tidying the garden and sweeping

your own paths, to getting involved in projects like ‘Greening Wingrove. But there are issues that need some

outside help too, such as cyclists using pavements and people not

parking properly.

A growing older population is changing the shape of our city and communities. We need

more conversations about ageing, so that we understand what this means for us as individuals, families, and the organisations and institutions

in our city.

Some people are rude and treat older people as physically and/or mentally

‘slow’. This can stop us going out and joining in.

All of this work has been captured on a project blog - www.hces-online.net/websites/Elders/ This is an opportunity to keep this important conversation going and share it within, and beyond the project. On the blog, you will find details of each of the workshops, and you can see vivid drawings of our conversations, captured by Martin Gollan, Visual Artist. You can also find details of our work with Skimstone Arts, including the time some of the participants spent in a week-long arts residency to develop our 40 minute performance, ‘Doorbells of Delight’. This premiered on Tuesday 8th July; 55 people joined us including participants, their friends and family, and people from community and arts organisations. ‘Doorbells of Delight’ told tales of change, of connections and tensions, of getting on with it, of being overburdened with the ‘doing for everyone else’, of loneliness, experienced when alone or amongst others’ hustle and bustle. Feedback agreed that the performance was ‘about real lives’ and ‘could be anywhere, all those seams and threads about getting on with it in streets up and down the country’.

In the coming months, we will update the statements presented in this report to include the additional points raised during the post-performance discussion. We also plan to take the performance to other communities and we will share our findings with policy makers, planners and service providers, so that our reflections and ideas influence developments in the city. We want to carry on this conversation so that more people can think about how our communities are changing, and how we might respond as individuals or organisations to the opportunities and challenges this presents. We would love you to share your thoughts and opinions on these statements on our blog to inform this ongoing discussion about how to support older people to enjoy their later life in their home and community.

1 Office for National Statistics, 20112 Research and Evaluation Framework for Age-friendly cities

At a time when the government is questioning our readiness for an ageing population, and with restructuring of and reduction in services to support older people, what do older people themselves think is needed to support ageing well at home and in their neighbourhoods?