We have here a document that defies categorisation. When the author reached the age of 85, he set to work on a five-year project. Having formed an opinion that experts on ageing could not possibly know what life was like for those in his age group, he decided to ‘set some of their findings about us beside the facts, fictions, sensations and reflections of someone they are pleased to call the oldest-old’ (p. 1). The book is written in journal form with many entries, written over the five-year span. It does not have a neat, logical progression: instead it weaves in and out of gerontology, relevant events and introspection. It is certainly neither diary nor autobiography.
Hawkins served in World War II in naval intelligence (where he encountered Laslett, founder of the University of the Third Age movement in Britain) and studied political science at the London School of Economics. There followed a varied career but this venture, it appears, was his first foray into gerontology. Over the course of this project Hawkins read widely and critically: academic books, works of fiction, works of commentary and many journal articles. He joined the British Society of Gerontology and attended one of its full, three-day conferences, plus a number of other conferences and seminars. As whippersnappers in middle age attempted to measure and categorise the lives of the ‘oldest old’, he travelled amongst them incognito, making wry observations about their antics and pronouncements.
In the short pieces that make up this book Hawkins rails against patronising media coverage; muses on the birthdays and deaths of famous contemporaries; and reflects on the experience of struggling to maintain his physical and mental fitness. He also experiences the death of a very dear friend and wonders, poignantly, whether bereavement is more or less painful for one of his years. He is trenchant in his criticism of those who analyse the experience of the very old but who meanwhile dwell, he argues, in a country that academics of working age have never visited. As to the findings of their research, he is not greatly impressed. He notes the tendency to generalise and the urge to categorise, while those of his age group, he believes, become more individual as they age: ‘We are such a gallimaufry that any attempt to define older people falls apart as soon as you try’ (p. 61).
Hawkins also comments on conclusions that are mundane but dressed in elaborate jargon. In fact, he is particularly swingeing – and amusing – in his critique of academic jargon. For instance, he enjoys one author's writing in part: ‘because there is a complete absence of jargon, a feature that many current writers in the field would find confusing’ (p. 12). He challenges the notion that ‘the maintenance of morale at the end of life requires the creation of, and belief in a coherent life story’ (p. 30): it certainly has no resonance for him. He was also interested as to whether or not there is a role for the older-old person himself in real research. The impression he gained was that there were ‘flaky grades of professional opinion’ on the desirability of this (p. 17). He observes that some researchers seem reluctant to engage with those they study at anything other than the shallowest of levels. It appears, he concludes, that there is a terror of ‘our making unreliable i.e. non-professional contributions … checking interview transcripts and engaging in a discussion of ongoing projects, which might lead to challenging of the research findings, or even to a change in analytical processes’ (p. 17). In the final pages he admits to having been a little tart on this topic, admits there is some good practice, and sees cause for encouragement.
With increasing numbers of us reaching 80 and beyond in similarly lively frame of mind and reasonable fitness of body, Hawkins’ observations are pertinent to anyone who would carry out research on such lives. Academics would do well to obtain a copy of this book, read it, and then keep it to hand, dipping into it to remind themselves of the need for humility. This would have made a wonderful blog and would have allowed him to share his observations with a much wider audience. It is an entertaining and accessible read, and it was therefore no great hardship to read it twice, in order to do it justice in this review. As I did so, I found myself becoming increasingly fond of the author.
As this project ended, the 90-year-old Hawkins was planning another one – emigration from Britain to Canada. So intrigued was I, that I made enquiries and am assured that, at the time of writing, he is pleased with the way he is settling to a new life in British Colombia and finding it ‘totally exhilarating’. This book is self-published and consequently has no ISBN. If you would like to obtain a copy, and I strongly suggest that you should do so, please write to the author c/o 29 Queen Court, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BB.
