50 years old is a tad young

About 30 miles away from where I live is a place called Southampton. When I read in the local press that it was going to provide an “action-packed programme of activities for this year’s Over-50s Festival” it naturally caught my attention.

The articl said that the “festival aims to give the city’s older generations the chance to get active and try something new this summer like t’ai chi, pottery, golf and pizza-making lessons, music, behind-the-scenes tours, boat trips and various cultural city tours – it will culminated with the Over-50s Festival ball at the Guildhall.”

A couple of other appeared in today’s news. First, the abandonment of the compulsory retirement age at 65 and also the revelation the number of HIV cases in the over-50s had doubled.

I found difficult to get my head around the idea that we have a festival for people who have at least another 15 years of work – probably more and who are clearly find lots to do with their spare time.

The serious point to these muses is that the Southampton event is really (I guess) aimed at the over 60s – probably the over-70s. Even though the marketing world attaches the label of ‘old’ at, or about the age of 50, this is not something recognised by the individual.

Just a free bit of advice to Southampton Council – next year change the name. Dick Stroud