Reflecting on the joys and sorrows of old age | Letters

One of the joys of being old is that you can remember being younger. Those who are younger, like John Harris (Opinion, 5 August), can only imagine being older, and, like most imaginings, his is romantic. He imagines choosing to hobble down the road to drink his slow half. But as a fairly healthy 70-plus, I can tell him that you don't choose to hobble. In my case it might so far be limited to taking the stairs one tread at a time instead of two, having to pre-plan crouching down, or failing with monotonous regularity to remember names. But it gives me enough of a peek into the future to know I might not like it at all. I might still be hale and hearty like Denis Healey at 90, or perhaps not. I have just witnessed the trauma of a friend losing both very elderly parents after caring for them through their increasingly serious illnesses. It's not nice and it's not fair. So, if I had a choice to be that sort of a burden or not to be, I hope I'd have the courage to consider the alternatives.
Bob Owen
Sherborne, Dorset

" I agree with John Harris about old age. At 72 I can potter and enjoy reading him and Michele Hanson and others at my leisure. My father at 93 is bedbound and in a nursing home but I have heard him talking and chortling to himself - his sense of humour still somewhere there with the memory loss and confusion of dementia. He asked me recently what job I do now so I said, happily: "You are my job." The job is a rollercoaster of change in need and care to achieve the best arrangements possible. What better job? Yes, there are managers, systems and procedures to deal with, but also meeting a lot of nice, caring people.
Christine Dixon
London