Oxford festival proves 'old is the new young'

Old is the new young,” declares TV producer, author, comedy writer and organiser of an Oxford festival to celebrate ageing Judith Holder.

“We’re living so much longer that our notion of old is being redefined. What would have seemed old to our parents and grandparents now seems like just the nursery slopes of old.”

She believes we need to re-think ageing and attitudes towards it; that society in general would do well to use and revere the accumulated wisdom that comes with advanced years and that we should accept and embrace the changes it brings and adapt accordingly rather than desperately trying to hang on to our youth.

“My generation of baby boomers – I caught the tail end – were the first to make it fun being young,” says Judith, 59.

“Now we need to be the first to make it fun to be old.”

Late middle age is a subject Judith is fast becoming an expert in... as well as experiencing.

“It’s like going through adolescence all over again. There’s even a word for it: gerolescence,” she says, refering to the term for the biological and psychological changes that confront people, beginning in the middle years and progressing through later life.

After being producer of Grumpy Old Women for BBC Two, and Jenny Éclair’s co-writer for three live stage show tours, Judith is now at University of Oxford’s Institute of Population Ageing as a visiting research fellow writing a book about the process of growing old.

“I felt that having mined a seam of comedy for 10 years on getting older, I would like to find out much more about it, and in particular the huge revolution going on with old age – 50 is the new 40, old is the new rock and roll etc… so I approached the university and institute,” says Judith – who has two daughters Siena, 26, and Ellen, 23, and is married to Mike, 66, a retired passenger authority boss.

“To my amazement they invited me to do a visiting fellowship to help me write the book which I am in the middle of.”

She’s living proof that age is no barrier to taking a look at your life and making changes.

“I have done one academic year, fallen utterly in love with the city of Oxford and the area, and we have moved house to near Stanton Harcourt, from Northumberland, a big move,” she says happily.

“Over a coffee one sunny autumn day last year it occurred to me that it would be wonderful to have a festival in Oxford to celebrate older age, rather than worry about and trot out more of the problems and issues associated with it.”

So she’s organised one.

“I began conversations... Jenny [Eclair] is doing it as a bit of a favour – her show has a lot of material about ageing – and it has been fun getting to know all the organisations that have helped me get it off the ground, the museums, the council, Age UK, and the 50 Plus Network,” says Judith. “Growing old can be liberating, and a time to do the things you really enjoy and whatever your age and mobility, there are activities which can help you get the most of out of life.”

After all, as she wisely points out, even Mick Jagger is about to be a great grandfather.

What's on at the festival:

• Thursday, October 2
• Oxford Town Hall, 10am to 4pm. Free event: Taster sessions in Samba, Ceroc, yoga, singing, and table tennis. Local groups will be on hand to promote activities for the over 50s, as well as an internet café for help with iPads, texting, skyping, facebook, tweeting and “other related computer nightmares that tend to happen to people of a certain age”
• The Old Fire Station, 7.30pm. Jenny Éclair performs her one-woman show Eclairious, tickets £17.50
• The festival has been organised in conjunction with Oxford City Council, Museum of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum, Age UK Oxfordshire, Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund, Oxford 50+ network, Go Active Get Healthy
• For more details see ageing.ox.ac.uk/events/old-is-the-new-young-festival
• Tickets for Jenny Eclair at oldfirestation.org.uk 01865 305305 or Oxford Playhouse Box Office, Beaumont Street

A bit more about Judith Holder

JUDITH has written three stage shows with Jenny Éclair – the first one called Grumpy Old Women Live did three regional tours, a spell in the West End, an Australian tour, and Iceland and Finland with Sweden, France, Germany, Russia and New Zealand.
The shows are feel-good performances about being a middle-aged woman rather than a series of grumps on stage.
Judith is especially interested in writing for the over 50s market “who are at last being recognised as the demographic with wit, taste and the all important disposable income”.
She’s written and performed pieces for Woman’s Hour and Saturday Live for Radio 4, along with pieces in The Lady, Saga Magazine and The Daily Mail.
As producer and executive producer Judith’s been making network TV since the l980s. Her career took off at LWT’s entertainment department producing Clive James, Michael Aspel and Dame Edna Everage, and she went on to originate such landmark television as sending Joanna Lumley to a desert island, reuniting the children from The Sound of Music, having Victoria Wood look at the diet industry, and writing and producing Grumpy Old Women for BBC2.
Her books include Grumpy Old Women The Official Handbook, The Secret Diary of a Grumpy Old Woman and Wendy the Bumper Book of Fun for Women of a Certain Age.

Ten good things about being a woman of a certain age from Judith Holder

1 You no longer care what people think of you – you can pop out to the shops in your slippers and people can like it or lump it
2 You can spot gormlessness in a shop assistant a mile off and redirect your attention accordingly
3 With luck you are no longer a corporate slave or in a position where you have to endlessly be nice to a boss
4 You know stuff: you can sniff bacon that’s gone off and you know which forms to fill in at the post office
5 The kids have flown the nest and no one leaves the freezer door open or the immersion on
6 You don’t have to go to parties any more and pretend to like people
7 You don’t have to set a good example and sit through any more Shakespeare history plays
8 If you are really bored in the theatre you can leave in the interval and be home in time to eat the leftover trifle in the fridge before bed
9 Those maddening make-up assistants in shops ignore you
10 You’re now so invisible you can queue jump and no one notices