GERALDINE they're moaning again.

I feel younger and happier now at 62 than I was in my 30's. Quite content with the aging process. I am as I am today.

Presumably there are people covering a fairly wide age spectrum on Gransnet, though possibly fewer very elderly people. Why is it a problem that a photograph of an older looking lady has been used - is getting older something to be ashamed of?

I think everybody should have a voice and if the photograph encourages a very elderly person (who may be more isolated) to join Gransnet, I feel it would be a very good thing.

Well said, Nellie...

I think the concept of old being 5 years older than oneself is brilliant but maybe it should be 10yrs.

I agree with the bit about not being afraid of our age whatever age we are, we have lived it. Surely once we pander to the "age is dreadful" lobby we are giving in to the youth culture by agreeing with them that being old is bad.

So far as I know GNers seem to be between 80+ and 50. I hope anyone older out there will come out of the closet.

What is important about being older is how we feel about life our attitudes and interests. Even if the body is happens to be letting us down a bit on the mobility side.

We need to be seen to carry on being silly and irreverent and cynical and aware of the world. That to me shows best that we haven't become old and stuffy.

Show some older women of varying ages getting together and having fun whatever our state of mobility or health etc.

I just want to prove to convince myself I am not old on day when my back is complaining after just a bit of housework. Creak Groan

and as for jings, your photo with a fag makes me smile laugh out loud. It's good to

Bags You make such good sense. As a matter of fact, when I was leaving home on Friday [to meet you for lunch] I said to Mr soop...I like being with Bags because she appreciates me for what I am...wrinkles and all.

Not quite, but I'm really am more grown up at not quite sixty than I was at forty, at which point I was a lot more grown up than I had been twenty years before that.

In three years' time, I probably won't be much different from now, and it wouldn't bother me if someone thought I was sixty now.

Bags You aren't sixty yet.

You have to be a gran before you can be a great gran.

Re sixty new forty — not in my case. I'm far more grown up than I was at forty, and glad about it.

j08 I don't think crone is an especially nice word. It's a bit like calling someone an old sow. I think Chaucer does both. However, my point is that I shall never get to the stage of being classed as an old crone because it will always be five years ahead of whatever age I am at the time.

She looks more like a great gran (ducking to avoid a clip round the ear from greatnan)

I thought sixty was the new forty?

You really don't object to the phrase "ancient crone"? My God!

j08 Who said ancient crones aren't eligible for gransnet? Geraldine didn't. In any case, isn't an ancient crone always five years older than whatever age you are now?

Nothing wrong with looking older. Perhaps we women spend too much time - and money - trying to slow down the visible process of ageing. Fact is, we don't know how old the gran in the picture is. She could be an older-looking 70 or a younger-looking 90.

I would like to know at what age we become "ancient crones" and therefore not eligible for Gransnet any more.

I would think the photo could encourage even older grans to start using a computer. A picture of a younger woman may make them (older grans) think they are too old for it!

We should all send photos of ourselves to a stock photo supplier!

I wish Geraldine had emphasies the fun side of Gransnet more, though. Her article dwelt on all the serious conversations.

I'll join your campaign if I may, absent.

elegran, why "should"? There are no rules. If the picture is the same elsewhere, I would suggest that that is because there are too few 'stock' photographs of grans/old/older women using computers. I suspect it's nothing more sinister than that.

Bags I agree. I have been running a one-[old]woman campaign to recapture the word "old" – and its popular image – and use it in a completely neutral way, just as one would use "tall".

Every single version of this story in the papers has this same picture. The Telegraph got in first with it (a day earlier than requested!) and now their choice of image is being copied everywhere.

The average age of a GN member is 60 - so the picture should have been believably 60.

OK, absnet, carry on.

What is wrong with looking old? Why are we so afraid of it? What is wrong, indeed, of being old?

Most of us are extremely prejudiced about this and fight against it in what are, in my view, quite superficial ways that achieve precisely zilch. That's the real problem.

When we stop minding being portrayed as old – because there's nothing wrong with being old – we'll have ditched our prejudices and our fears. Not before.

Sorry. "Ancient crone" . The posh version of old hag

Look, I did n' t start the first thread on this to CRITICISE the woman in the picture. I think she looks fine. I probably look older than her at the moment.

Bags has got a very good point.

And to refer to anyone of our age as an "old hag" is beyond the pale, whether it is any member of Joe public doing it, it or the editor of Gransnet.

I like being silly.

She is not thirty. Don,t be silly.