EMMA SOAMES: NEW DECADE – NOW WE NEED A NEW ATTITUDE TO AGE.

EMMA SOAMES

EDITOR-AT-LARGE, SAGA MAGAZINE
PRESS RELEASE

January 19, 2010.

EMMA SOAMES: NEW DECADE – NOW WE NEED A NEW ATTITUDE TO AGE.

Campaigner for the retired and over-50s, Emma Soames, says the country needs to completely re-assess its attitude to age.

“As we welcome a new ‘Saga generation’ in 2010 – those turning 50 this year - we are also welcoming an era in which 50 is the new 34; hands up everybody who doesn’t feel their age – there’ll be a lot of hands in the air,” said Emma, 60, editor-at-large of Saga Magazine.

“There will be in the region of 836,000 people who turn 50 this year, rising to 868,000 in 2011. This new 2010 Saga generation can look forward to another 30 years of active life, while the generation born a hundred years ago were within a few years of the end of theirs at 50.

“Employers, friends and family of over-50s need to change their attitude to older people, and realise that wrinkles on the outside don’t mean wrinkles on the inside.

“People born in 1910 had a life expectancy of only around 50 years, and would have been lucky to see 1960. People born in 1960 can expect to live until at least 80. Effectively, people born in 1910 could expect, if they were fortunate, a further 10% of life at 50, while those born in 1960 can expect an extra 60% of life.

“Running those lives alongside each other, then simple maths says that somebody turning 50 in 2010 is at the same stage in their life timeline as somebody aged 34 who was born in 1910.

“2010’s 50-year-olds live and act as people in their mid-30s did only a few decades ago, and today’s 72-year-old can be as sprightly – or more so – than somebody who was 50 in 1960.

“The new Saga generation really is the golden generation - those born in 1960 have seen more change in their lives than any generation before or since. Just consider: the space age, the swinging 60s, a holiday and travel revolution, mobile phones, computers, technological progress beyond the dreams of their great grandparents.

“Unfortunately, memories are long and it is in our genes to consider over-50s over-the-hill.

“They started work just as Mrs Thatcher started to transform Britain and have lived through a media revolution – starting with changes in the newspapers in the early 80s, massive expansion of TV and radio, and, of course, the blossoming of the internet.

“It’s probably the media that has been at the heart of forming the lifestyle of the current generation – and perhaps the new range of media we have at our disposal today can help re-align our perceptions of the abilities, capabilities and lifestyles of the over-50s.”

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley/Chris Fowler
im@pressrelations.co.uk / cf@pressrelations.co.uk
07788 978800 / 07719 172225
http://www.saga.co.uk/

Emma Soames, editor-at-large, was editor of Saga Magazine from 2002-2008. Previously she edited the Telegraph Magazine for seven years and before that was editor of ES Magazine, Tatler and the Literary Review. Emma is also an occasional columnist for The Daily Telegraph.