Get up and go

Are you hooked on history? Clued up on culture? If so, then now is the time to share your passion and get a Blue Badge, says Caroline Roberts As a tourist guide, Rosalind Hutchinson spends her days bringing history to life. But she didn’t expect it to come quite so vividly to life as it [...]

Ellen Bennett discovers how and why the phenomenal success of the Fifty Shades trilogy has been driven by women over 50 Sexual intercourse began in 1963,” according to the poet Phillip Larkin. So by his reckoning, the first generation of sexually liberated women are now comfortably into their 50s and 60s. Small wonder, then, that [...]

The high court denied a man suffering from locked-in syndrome the right to die, bringing back to the fore the euthanasia debate The tragic case of Tony Nicklinson has thrust the ethical dilemma of euthanasia back into the limelight. Nicklinson, 58, died from natural causes last week after losing a High Court battle to be [...]

Are you fired up by Fifty Shades and fancy a different way to stay fit? Belly-dancing is the answer, claims Maureen Paton, who shares with us its bountiful benefits I came very late to the idea of exercise, having ignored it for decades until I reached an ‘interesting’ age and realised I urgently needed it. [...]

I always thought cruising was for old people, so naturally I was never interested, not being old. And never will be. It’s only other people who are old such as, well, older people. We did go on the QE2 to New York many years ago, back in 1976, American bicentenary year. I remember the year [...]

Kerry Fowler sinks her teeth into the latest recipe books hitting the shelves Simple Cooking, Antonio Carluccio, Quadrille Publishing, £9.99 “The biggest discovery of a dish happens when you are obliged to use leftovers – how to include them, how to make them interesting,” Carluccio says. “My mother was an artist in it: she knew [...]

It’s no surprise that exercise is important, but how can we keep it interesting? Belly-dancing is the answer, claims Maureen Paton, who shares with us its bountiful benefits I came very late to the idea of exercise, having ignored it for decades until I reached an ‘interesting’ age and realised I urgently needed some elder-exercise [...]

Miriam Margolyes talks to Maureen Paton about her hunger for success, swimming to stay fit, and her hopes of growing old disgracefully After two outrageous recent appearances on the Graham Norton Show, she has become a YouTube hit at the age of 71. In an astonishingly productive 50-year career, she has worked with everyone from [...]

Policy makers so far haven’t put adult social care anywhere near the top of the agenda and the older generation’s patience is running out. A whole year has passed since Andrew Dilnot published his detailed report on social care funding but ministers have finally responded. Last week, the white paper on tackling the care crisis [...]

Geraldine James tells Daphne Lockyer she is busier than ever and she’s more than happy to play older than her 62 years in her latest role Geraldine James was spending her milestone 60th birthday on a plane bound for New York. It was not how she’d have chosen to celebrate, but the transatlantic journey proved [...]