National Service for Pensioners

There was another bash the selfish babyboomers in the Evening Standard yesterday (by Rachel Unwin/Urwin). If the arguments for withdrawing entitlements are good ones, they will stand & we can be convinced without the nasty victimisation of us & the fanning the flames of intergenerational conflict.

Good point, GadaboutGran, about the WRVS in hospitals. That was a disgrace!

Great idea to invite Wei &/or Hurd to Gransnet & emailing him. Has anyone done so yet and got a reply? I think of all those older volunteers who have been chucked out of places such as Cathedral cafes & charities such as the WRVS stopped from running hospital cafes to be replaced by commercial organisations, plus all the loss of funding which has caused many charities to close. And aren't there already Volunteer Centres who do a great job facilitating volunteers? The problem with our expertise is that the values guiding what many of us did are now seen as uncommercial or outdated for a 'dog eats dog, 'computer says no' world.

No he did and he's dead as well. She depicted them sunbathing in their garden. He was not amused!

Yes jeni! Beryl Cook is dead so I hope he doesn't live next door to her

I'm definitely demented! I've just read my files for Monday and I'm ready to tear my hair out!

I have just googled Lord Wei and got the report of what he said. Apart from him aiming his plan at retired 55 -65 year olds, which, as Absentgrana points out are less and less likely to be retired. It is clear that he also sees all those of us who are 66 and over as too old, too doddery and too demented to be capable of making any contribution to the community. If he really properly investigated he would find the majority of volunteers to charities are over 60....whoops I am repeating what I said in my first mailing oin this subject

Does that mean that at 66 I'm far too old to help the community? Jolly good, I'll just look after me then and forget everyone else

Lord Wei's "older people" whom he wants to encourage to volunteer in retirement are also described by him as being "55- to 65-year olds". I would guess that fewer and fewer people will be retiring at 55 – or anywhere below pensionable age – in today's economic climate. Also, has anyone pointed out that the pension age is being increased at a rate that this government has accelerated and that, fairly soon, it will be over 65 for both men and women?

Lord Wei is on a par with the idiot who wrote that report on older people living in houses with too many bedrooms. They get a bee in their bonnet about some aspect of the lives of a group of people they know nothing about and then build a whole Shard in the sky about what they do, how they live etc etc then they puff it out to the press in a style that will attract attention. The fact that they dont know what they are talking about and that the report is based on hot air with no substantive facts to support it is completely ignored.

Once upon a time politics was populated by lawyers, squires and ex-further education lecturers (depending what party you supported) now politics is populated by ex Public Relations executives who know that if you if you say something loud enough and often enough people will believe you. They are using generation warfare to distract people from the devastating effects that the gross mismangement of the economy by both parties and the unbridled greed of financial corporations has brought on us all. Given the age of our current Cabinet they have been reduced to the tactics of inadequates since time immemorial - blame your parents for the messes you get yourself into.

I wonder what he does for the community? Most of us, I suspect, did things for others when we were working too.

Hear hear!

Treat this sort of comment with the contempt it deserves. We know the huge contribution we have always made and continue to do so. If he doesn't know then that his loss. Personally I would just love to meet him on one of our rare holidays! I am 65, still running our own business, have six grandchildren and volunteer with young people! I know I'm OK, is he?

One of the doctors who worked for me lives next door to her. He tried to sue her when she characterised him and his wife in one of her paintings!

Bowls always makes me think of those Beryl Cook paintings...

I'm not taking ANY chances!!!

Er....I hesitate to point out the obvious, jeni!

In that case I will take up bowls.

I don't think I'd take up golf. Every time I did in the past I got pregnant within three months! Even after having been sterised I've kept away ever since

Well said, FlicketyB!

If my voluntary work was subsumed into some great National Community Service Plan For The Elderly I would promptly resign from everything, take up golf and go on a cruise. One of the ineffable joys of retirement is being to decide myself what I do and when I do it.

That is the trickiest bit, JessM Those who already do it from their own initiative don't need any chivvying. Others might do it if it occurred to them and sounded an interesting and worthwhile thing to do. Others again have neither time or inclination and would just find any suggestion of it a cheek.

Calling it National Service was not a good idea. Military National Service was an unwelcome break in young men's lives but at least most of your classmates were called up too, so it was a kind of rite of passage. The older generation do not need any rite of passage - and it has an obligatory sound.

And how on earth are you supposed to chivvy along the unwilling?

I am too busy with family commitments to take on any voluntary work but what if I simply don't want to? What is wrong with spending your hard earned retirement taking life easy(I wish)? Some folk are naturals when it comes to committees, volunteering, community work etc., but some aren't. Does it matter?

What irritates me is the assumption that people who retire don't undertake voluntary work. As I have commented on another thread people tend to believe the media image and not what is in front of their eyes. The media suggest retired people are either poor old dears or on cruises or the golf course all the time. Reality is that if you look at any voluntary organisation, whether charity helping those in need, or a local civic or cultural group you will find that, at least 90 percent of the volunteers are over retirement age.

my retired friends work for charities for the elderly, heritage groups, music societies, Oxfam, and their church not to mention providing childcare for their GC and giving the psychological, physical and financial help that enables their wider family to cope with life and find housing and jobs in these difficult times.

I do not have time to join a National Service for the Elderly programme I am too busy with all my voluntary work