one - Starting from lives

Summary

The greater the distance between direct experience and its interpretation, then the more likely resulting knowledge is to be inaccurate, unreliable and distorted. (Beresford, 2003, p 22)

This chapter begins by introducing the older people whose experiences and perspectives form the central thread of the book. I then introduce both myself and the research, aiming to make as transparent as possible the research relationships and processes through which understanding of older people's strategies for managing ageing has been generated. The final part of the chapter considers the rationale for starting with the experiences of older people in order to understand ageing. This encompasses discussion of theory, epistemology, values and policy.

Introducing the older participants

As mentioned in the Introduction, I wanted to ‘get close’ to older people’s experiences, not only by using methods that helped them to talk openly about their experiences, but also by trying to involve them in some of the research processes. To promote their involvement and also to present them as ‘whole people’, rather than a series of dissected quotations, I invited them to write, or help to write, their own ‘pen picture’. Most said they wanted me to write it, but that they would like the chance to read and amend it, so this is the process we followed. All names are pseudonyms, in most cases as chosen by participants.

Alice

Alice is in her mid-80s. She lives in a detached, owner-occupied house at the end of a quiet no-through road in a small village. The house is shared with her sister but it is divided into two separate units. They have lived in the house for 17 years, purchasing it together after Alice's husband died. They each have a separate entrance and living accommodation but there is a communicating door between the two halves of the house and they share a kitchen. Alice has difficulty climbing the stairs so her bedroom and bathroom are both on the ground floor.

Alice was widowed 19 years ago. Her husband was a headmaster and they had an active social life together following his retirement. Several of the school staff and former pupils are still in touch with Alice. She has one daughter who lives locally but her daughter's husband has a debilitating illness so this limits the amount of contact between them.