Fiction and the Cultural Mediation of Ageing (FCMAP): New Narratives of Everyday Ageing in Contemporary Britain: An Anthology

The proposed research returns to the data collected for the Fiction and the Cultural Mediation of Ageing Project (FCMAP), which consists of responses to Mass Observation (MO) directives on ageing from 1992, 2006 and 2009, and the autobiographies and diaries from members of book groups, set up through the University of the Third Age (U3A), who read a series of novels with ageing-related themes during 2009 and 2010. The new project will produce a book modelled on recent best-selling MO anthologies and diaries such as Simon Garfield's Our Hidden Lives and Nella Last's War (both of which have led to sequels and been dramatised for television - the latter very successfully as Housewife, 49, starring a BAFTA-winning Victoria Wood). By collecting the stories of between fifteen and twenty FCMAP participants (both MO and U3A), currently aged between sixty and ninety, and weaving them together into a mass-market paperback anthology, provisionally entitled Our Age: Everyday Diaries of Ageing in Contemporary Britain, we will trace the radical changes in the experience of ageing in contemporary Britain since the 1980s.
As a 72 year-old retired plumber from Birmingham noted in 1992: 'People have a more active social life these days to a more advanced age than twenty or so years ago. Years ago one thought about retiring as doing a bit of gardening and taking to an armchair'. Over the subsequent two decades the already-outdated iconic Welfare-State image of the old age pensioner enjoying a few years of well-earned rest was replaced both by a range of active leisure pursuits formerly considered the preserve of those in the pre-retirement age range and by the evolution of ad hoc roles, such as grandparenting and volunteering for charities, into necessary components for the continued functioning of an increasingly strained British society. For those who have experienced these changes at firsthand, it is obvious that the transformation in both the behaviour and the economic and social importance of people in their sixties and, in many cases, their seventies completely invalidates the general media representation of the 'elderly' and, in particular, the persistent labelling by government and media of ageing as a social problem. In 2009, a retired female auditor, aged 66, with a living mother of 102, and therefore well aware that she had potentially over a third of her life ahead of her, was prophesising a power shift in which 'the generation coming into the pensioner group now will be prepared to speak up and demand what they want'.
The production of the anthology in this proven format - involving the research team in sustained archival research at MO, follow-up interviews with selected U3A members, and extended editorial work - will enable the findings of FCMAP to reach beyond the audience of academics and policymakers, which has already been successfully engaged, directly to the general public. The aim is to enable readers to see for themselves the advantage that drawing on a narrative understanding of one's own life confers on people as they grow older. The anthology will show how viewing the process of ageing - including such aspects as children leaving home, menopause, careers coming to an end, retirement, post-retirement activities (including the U3A, voluntary work, caring for grandchildren), care homes, bereavement and infirmity - through the lens of self-reflective narrative allows one to see it as a journey of continued self-discovery rather than a pre-ordained road to ruin.
The project will end by bringing together the research team and some of the contributors to the anthology with members of the public, policy makers, representatives of the media and other academics at a day event to be held in Central London. Here, the significance of this emergence in the real world of a new narrative-based understanding of the life course will be discussed and, it is expected, that fruitful directions for future research will emerge.

This project is concerned with the primary aim of disseminating a new narrative-based understanding of the life course, derived from the original FCMAP research project, as directly as possible to a section of the general public without the journalistic distortion of the media. The means of doing this is by producing a popular anthology of narrative accounts of ageing, provisionally entitled Our Age: Everyday Diaries of Ageing in Contemporary Britain, with the potential to become a bestseller, modelled on the very successful anthologies of wartime and post-war experiences compiled from the Mass Observation Archive; and to supplement this strategy with a headline public event in Central London. Therefore, the beneficiaries of this project will be, in the first instance, the readership of this anthology, which because of the subject of the book can be expected to be weighted towards older members of society. It is hoped that through this exposure to the public, that the idea of self-reflective narrative understanding being a key component of active ageing will spread through society as a meme, enhancing cultural enrichment, quality of life, health and well-being and facilitating the attendant benefits of social welfare and cohesion.

The production of this anthology will benefit the public by presenting through the everyday diaries of ordinary people the key story of ageing in contemporary Britain over the last three decades: how the behaviour and the economic and social importance of people in their sixties and, in many cases, their seventies completely invalidates the general media representation of the 'elderly' and, in particular, the persistent labelling by government and media of ageing as a social problem. Furthermore, and crucially, it will enable readers to see for themselves the advantage that drawing on a narrative understanding of one's own life confers on people as they grow older. The anthology will show how viewing the process of ageing - including such aspects as children leaving home, menopause, careers coming to an end, retirement, post-retirement activities (including the U3A, voluntary work, caring for grandchildren), care homes, bereavement and infirmity - through the lens of self-reflective narrative allows one to see it as a journey of continued self-discovery rather than a pre-ordained pathway to 'dependence, decrepitude and death' (Laslett 1989, 4).

To link this exemplary process of public engagement with the pre-existing knowledge exchange pathways established by the original FCMAP project - ongoing policy impact generated by the co-writing of the book-length report, Coming of Age, with Demos and a lasting academic legacy in the form of publications including Hubble and Tew's Ageing, Narrative and Identity: New Qualitative Social Research - a day event will be held in Central London bringing together the research team and some of the contributors to the anthology with members of the public, policy makers, representatives of the media and other academics. Here, the significance of this emergence in the real world of a new narrative-based understanding of the life course will be discussed and, it is expected, that fruitful directions for future research will emerge. A 16-page programme for the day will include a synopsis of the FCMAP research and the preparatory research for the anthology, descriptions of previous events such as the New Cultures of Ageing conference, suggested further reading , links (e.g. to the online edition of Coming of Age) and contact details. The day will end with an early-evening public forum featuring a leading cultural figure or figures in discussion of the cultural significance of the new narratives of ageing (equivalent to the high-profile public discussions organised as part of the original FCMAP project, between David Lodge and Jim Crace in February 2010 and between Will Self and Fay Weldon in April 2011)