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40
OLD PEOPLE' S WELFARE
For many years to come there will be an increasing proportion of aged persons in
the community, partly as a result of the high birth rate in the Victorian and Edwardian
years and partly because of the advances in medical science which have considerably
lowered the death rate.
In the underdeveloped countries, apart from the very high mortality in children,
the death rate is about the same in each of the other age groups. In developed
countries such as this it is rare for a child to die and the maximum death rate is in
the seventy-five year old region. Today most people live their three score years and
ten and more, but unfortunately are not always able to avoid increasing frailties of the
flesh. Sooner or later, despite a vigourous spirit of independence, they need
assistance from their relatives or from public or voluntary agencies concerned with their
health and welfare. In addition to diminishing faculties many old people find it
extremely difficult tomaintain a reasonable standard of life and the chief cause is lack
of money, and this shortage influences their diet, their housing, their clothing, and
their personal pride.
In Tottenham various services have been created under the auspices of the Old
People's Welfare Committee, the Women's Voluntary Service, and many other voluntary
organisations, to give help to the needy senior citizens of the Borough of Tottenham,
Retirement Advice Clinic
In this country more than five hundred men a day reach the age of retirement and
most of these are obliged to leave their work to fit the requirements of pension or
superannuation schemes and rarely because they are no longer able to continue their
job with efficiency or because of ill health, or failing powers. Very few, in fact,
want to give up work. For one thing, the pensions to which they have been subscribing
for many years and which on the basis of the original contract would have kept them
comfortably, have been prejudiced by inflation and the steadily falling purchasing power
of the pound over the last twenty or thirty years. Again, the men and women of this
age group were brought up to consider that independence was a virtue and most of them
have a deep aversion and sense of shame about claiming National Assistance to assist
their pensions.
It is becoming increasingly clear that very few men in particular make any
preparations whatsoever for their retirement, on the whole preferring not to think of
it at all, or if they do, think it might be rather a pleasant holiday. Few seem to
realise it is going to be one of the biggest and most important changes in their lives.
And when the day comes, their workmates give them a cheer and present them with a
clock or some other token, and when they have been at home two weeks they are often
miserable and bored, not knowing what to do with themselves all day long. It is easy
for a decline in morale and self respect to set in.