By Julia Neuberger

We know we have a problem when Nick Cohen, a journalist I usually admire, writes about older fans going to a Springsteen concert, and ends his piece with: “As Springsteen bellowed ‘Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run’ into the north London night, I thought: “Run, Bruce, run? Only if you hand out the Zimmer frames first.” (Guardian June 4 2008).  He would not have dared to make such a sweeping and negative remark about blacks, Jews, gays or women. Why is it considered acceptable and even funny to treat older people as if they are all the same, all disabled, all being really too old to go to a rock concert? There are countless other examples, from putting in peoples' ages and describing them as ‘pensioner, 61’ to suggesting they are past it, or amusing because they want a stripper for their 100th birthday party.

I have just finished writing a book about old age. It was a terrific experience. I met large numbers of wonderful old people - mostly female - who were doing extraordinary things, such as their PhD or paragliding, sailing round the world or writing their first thriller. But I ended up feeling a mixture of huge admiration and considerable rage. Because what almost all of them said to me, after they had become frail and unable to do whatever it was that kept them going, was that they were perceived as pointless, a nuisance, in the way, expensive, and that they began to feel pointless too. Just being an interesting person, with great achievements and masses to tell the world, was not enough. Old people can, if they are sufficiently tough minded and active, become ‘national treasures’. But the great majority become invisible, a nuisance, in the way of progress, and, increasingly, seen as using too much of the nation’s resources without giving anything back.

My mother had that sense of feeling pointless. She kept saying - when very ill with the disease that finally killed her- that she needed to go back to work. But she at least received wonderful care, and my gratitude to those who looked after her knows no bounds. However, much of the care I saw during my research was quite unlike hers. I found cruelty, though rarely deliberate. Cruelty as a result of being inattentive to what matters was commonplace, however. Why is it considered acceptable to put food in front of an old person in hospital that they cannot open or eat, and then sweep it away? Starving people is cruel, even if unintentional. Or there is calling distinguished old people by their first names. Staff may think it  ‘friendly’, but most older people like to be given their full title, until such point as they decide to say ‘please call me Anne…’ Older people do not necessarily all want to watch Scooby Doo on TV, or any other daytime show, yet staff think it fine to arrange them around a room and leave the TV blaring. If you are sensitive to sound and flickering pictures, that too is cruel. And as for not touching people unless to do something invasive, when most older people would prefer their back rubbed or their hand held, it almost beggars belief- yet it is common to hear nurses say that they are not allowed to touch their patients unless to carry out some procedure,

So I saw cruelty, a sense of pointlessness, plus huge achievement in my research. It led to me writing a manifesto which asks for older people to be taken seriously, to be regarded as people. It asks for them not to be trapped at home because of a lack of public toilets - a national scandal that we are embarrassed to talk about. It asks for people to be cared for at home and not forced into care homes unnecessarily. But most of all it asks for a change of attitude. We’ll all get old if we do not die first. Yet if medical science can keep us going longer, the rest of society has to catch up and treat us like human beings. We have masses to give, and lots to tell. We made our contribution in the form of taxes and working. We may nevertheless need to work longer and pay more towards our pensions, but, whatever the financial constraints, society needs to change so that it is illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of age, whether in employment, insurance or any other goods and services.

So enough descriptions of wrinklies. Enough feeling we have to botox our faces and enhance our breasts. Enough pretending to be an age we are not. Instead, let’s see some older pride, a grey Panther movement, a bit of real anger at the way older people are treated in some of our hospitals, care homes, and in our communities. If older people were valued, there would be more park benches. If older people were valued, it would be illegal to discriminate against them for jobs or travel insurance premiums, unless they had a pre-existing condition. If older people were valued, they would not take the older presenters off our TV screens. Enough! Time for some grey rage, and some real political action. Don’t treat everyone from 60 to 100 the same. We’re as different as teenagers are from 50 year olds. It is now time for a concerted movement, instead of a few outspoken individuals, however wonderful. Enough is enough.