We are all ageless on this forum!

I've never really explored this particular topic, in depth, but I like to think GN posters are nothing like the images that go with advertisements for Saga Cruises, mobility scooters and pension plans! These are likely cobbled together by PR types, no older than, say, 29.

They give us glossy care home brochures with smiling, attentive care staff happily engaging with an equally smiling, well-dressed, well permed, well made-up (in a care home?) old dearie who clearly still has all her marbles and is attended to by benevolent staff who have all the time in the world.

Or the images of retired couples jogging together along leafy lanes, laughing their heads off because they still have their own hair and teeth and they're dressed from head to toe in Boden and have healthy outdoor tans.

No, no. These are synthetic media images which do not acknowledge getting older and therefore getting wiser - and more human, tolerant and realistic.

I prefer to think of GNetter's as being like the late Beryl Bainbridge, the quirky Edna O'Brien and the much-missed actor Richard Griffiths. None of them remotely like the primped, crimped and airbrushed images of what we're supposed to look like!

Good on them - and us!

To conclude........can I throw in glorious Grayson Perry, please?

windmill 😅😂

Our U3A monthly meeting hall yesterday was packed with over 100 of the older generation. We listened to a very interesting talk by a professor of environmental law followed by Q &A session.

The person who set up the sound system was wearing a very short pink lacy mini dress with black leggings and boots.

Admittedly the rest of us were the usual motley crew, who could be on GN.

I have been lucky and have met quite a few of us at Meetups and can confirm that we don't match the glossy images from the brochures.

There used to be a TV ad accompanied by the tune greensleeves with a grey haired couple driving through quiet country lanes. DH and I would chuckle at ourselves if we were ever on a greensleeves outing.

People's personalities don't change much so older people are just as variable as younger ones. This is why I get so annoyed at the assumption by advertisers that we are all insipid, decrepit old whingers living on our memories.

I’ve sometimes been surprised on here when a poster gives their age and are either much older or younger than my mental image of them😁 but as mum2three says older people as just as variable as younger ones.

windmill 😄 but ……can I throw out the supremely annoying Grayson Perry please?

I wonder if the surgically enhanced younger people having implants on face and teeth etc. ever arrive at a point nothing can be done. Looking in the mirror yesterday at the hairdressers I couldn't believe how old I looked, I should have done more often perhaps.
I always looked younger than my age, until a few years ago and it happened without me noticing. I don't sleep and I still
worry so I think that may be the reason. Worrying has never solved anything, not for me anyway.

That's the trouble with stereotyping, no one fits the stereotype! I most certainly don't!

I have all my own teeth and a good head of hair , admittedly very short, not long and flowing, however the rest of me…..

I image everyone on here looking like Hyacinth Bucket.

I don’t have a mental image of what Gransnetters look like. We are a mixed bunch, I’m guessing many are over 70, rather than 50-60.
At my U3a I would say most people look their age. Nobody stands out as mutton dress as lamb. On the other hand some of the most intelligent people are some who care least about their appearance.

Can I just say I don’t look like Hyacynth Bouquet * kadinsky*
🤣🤣🤣

I don't know about ageless - most days I feel every single one of my 62 years - but I've never been one to fit into stereotypes (of any age) and most days I'm glad in leggings and a t-shirt or hoodie, most of them featuring rock/metal/punk bands.

Well I stopped at 35 (until I look in the mirror and wonder who that old woman is) so I imagine that all the GNs are that age too,

windmill1 puts it brilliantly. That is one version of old age. I remember a sheltered houseing devlopment near me having an advert that seemed to show the white haired, white teethed couple gurning at the helm of a yacht. Hardly the type to buy small sheltered flats.

Of course the other stereotype of us oldies is the old and frail and needing help and protection and unable to do anything for ourselves, who need our children to supervise our every action.

I think the problem is 'old' covers such a huge age gap from 60s to 90s and more and while younger people do seem to be put into decades, we are all just 'pensioners and younger people tend to see us as just 'old' without discerning that 60 old is different tom90 old.

My age was queried last week when I went for my flu and Covid jab. The woman thought I was under 75, I am 82.

On my local Nextdoor, a fellow was offering massages for the elderly at home. He didn't specify the age of the elderly, so I asked why the elderly. The PM replied that none of us ever leaves our houses. Not quite true when many have recently been on holiday to eg Malta. I may not go far, am self-sufficient, and I have two brain cells which meet occasionally.

I love to see photos of GNs on their wedding day. So many here are funny, wise, kind, brave and much more. Always good to remember that we were all young once without too many aches or pains but are still the same people inside.

We had a thread some years ago now when many of us posted our wedding photos.
As most of them were in black and white it certainly showed our ages.
My own wedding was 67 years ago.

Oreo

I’ve sometimes been surprised on here when a poster gives their age and are either much older or younger than my mental image of them😁 but as mum2three says older people as just as variable as younger ones.

windmill 😄 but ……can I throw out the supremely annoying Grayson Perry please?

No you can't Oreo. Put him back! Ciao.

windmill1

Oreo

I’ve sometimes been surprised on here when a poster gives their age and are either much older or younger than my mental image of them😁 but as mum2three says older people as just as variable as younger ones.

windmill 😄 but ……can I throw out the supremely annoying Grayson Perry please?

No you can't Oreo. Put him back! Ciao.

I've put him outside again.
He can stay on the norty step for ever.

DGD asked yesterday why my hair hadn't gone grey like other old people's. 🤔
So I found myself telling her about my youth (oh dear, sign of age!), when it was blonde, red, dark, even accidentally green once.

I dyed my hair purple during lockdown (and pink before that!) and my GS keeps asking when I'm going to have purple hair again. Currently contemplating if I should take the plunge and dye it for a gig I'm going to next month...

Last year I travelled on a Virgin flight from the US.
I'm 65 and when I went to check in I was asked "are you medically fit to fly.?" I was shocked into just muttering "yes" and taking my boarding card with a curt"thank you"
I like to think I'm fairly well preserved, I walk miles with my dog, weigh the same 8 stone I have for years and haven't taken to wearing a twin set and pearls or a blue rinse quite yet.
To make matters worse the young woman sitting behind me was obviously suffering an upper respiratory illness and spent the entire flight coughing, sneezing and groaning about how ill she felt.

I stopped dying my hair at 55, greatest freedom, yes, 10 years on I possibly look older than my age but I really like the white/silvery colour my hair is now. It does not make me feel bad.
Sadly with everyday ageism it just adds to how people respond to older women.
I don't want to dye my hair to appear younger, my hair colour does not stop me doing anything I want to do.

Haha BlueBelle - I don’t think looking like hyacinth is actually that bad.
I mean, I was going to say Ena Sharples.
< runs >

Dylis I remember well, in 1971, having to produce a doctor’s cert saying I was ‘fit to fly’ - because I was pregnant. Maybe they thought that was it ? 😀😀😀I found it most amusing and kept the letter for some time - always wished I could flap my arms and fly !

I don’t think many Gransnetters live in a 1990 time warp Kandinsky, with a weekly shampoo and set, tweed skirts and candle lit suppers. Even my mother was not a subscriber to any of those things now I think about it. Most of us are just physically older versions of what we always were, as I’m sure you will be yourself.