e-mail Paul Lewis on paul@deadline.demon.co.uk
Why should the young get all the advantages? I find I say that sort of thing more nowadays. I was fifty in April. For some time I insisted I was only forty ten. But over the weeks the pain of crossing that landmark in time eased and I have finally accepted that I am now officially one of The Old. Almost certainly in the second half of my life. I hope it means that my younger relatives, friends, and colleagues forgive me for sounding more and more like Victor Meldrew. Though whether that look on their unlined faces is compassion or disdain is not always easy to tell. I find I really do say 'I don't believe it!' and start many sentences, or even conversations, with 'Young people nowadays....' and end them with '...it wasn’t like that in my day, I can tell you!' Preferably said with a knowing shake of what is still a head of shaggy brown hair. I was a hippy once. And now I’m ageing.
But since I have reached the age when I can be a customer of Saga as well as write for Saga Magazine - which incidentally I’ve been doing since I was a relatively young man in 1984 - I am beginning to look at the positive side of being what is teeth-gratingly called '50 plus'.
So let's start with this new book Passport 50 Plus - Your Guide to the Law. It is published by the Citizenship Foundation (no I hadn’t heard of them either) and it does just what it says on the cover - it gives you a clear guide to all those tricky little problems from a legal point of view. Which is great when you want to insist on your rights! Not that we have any special or particular rights just because we are over 50. But we are more likely to have the time and the determination to insist we get them - as I know very well from the thousands of Saga Magazine readers who have written to me over the years.
The Citizenship Foundation was started by lawyer Andrew Philips after he realised the need for it as the legal beagle on the Jimmy Young Programme. The Foundation's Director, Jan Newton, explains what it is.
"It's an independent, educational charity set up in 1989. It is really important to reduce ignorance and apathy about the law. We settled on 50 plus not to try to pigeon-hole older people but they have rights and interests as parents, grandparents, carers and are interested in the law as much for other people as for themselves."
Supported by the Citizen's Charter Unit (which we will admit very quietly is part of the Government) and various commercial but responsible companies like Guardian Insurance and, of course, Saga Group plc, the 192 page book covers an amazing amount of material in a readable and approachable manner. Health, Family, Home, Work, Retirement, Money, Travel, Leisure, Safety, Government, the Legal System, editor Tony Thorpe asks of all of them 'what is the legal issue here?'. So Families he sees as places where marriage, divorce, children and death all raise matters of rights and wrongs. Work is about contracts, pay, dismissal, and pensions. Travel is about clamping, accidents, disabled rights, and speeding. Health is about getting treatment, insurance, access to your records. Leisure is about the right to roam, concessions at sports centres, and gambling. Safety warns you about nuisance calls, self-defence, and neighbourhood watch. And Home is the place where neighbours might annoy you or someone might have an accident and sue you. And if they do the chapter on how the legal system works will be invaluable.
Pocket sized and full of value this excellent little work should be on everyone's bedside table. If they're over 50 that is. Like sex, it really is far too good for the young.
June 1998
e-mail Paul Lewis on paul@deadline.demon.co.uk