The Inuit People’s solution to old age was simple, and totally accepted; their ability to survive depended on their ability to masticate; age was not defined by years but by failing dental health.

When it was no longer possible to chew the diet of fish and yet more fish, the elders took it upon themselves to go off into the wilderness and allow hypothermia to take its course.

The group of people who gathered at the Methodist Church on March 29 to consider the question ‘Deciding for Ourselves; Planning a Positive Old Age’ discussed a range of subjects but teeth was not one of them.

The motivation for the afternoon seminar was to give participants the opportunity to consider the things which will be important to us in our older old age and in what way can we help ourselves to accomplish a sense of a life worth living when we have reached that time .

Jane Robinson and I organised the seminar with the intention that it should not be expert-led but that it should draw on the participants’ experience and wishes, considering not only our own needs but also, in the here and now, how to offer to our older relatives and older friends realistic help and companionship.

Practicalities formed the basis of much of the discussion and hence the five discussion groups to which attendees could contribute were; housing, health, transport, family, leisure and volunteering.

A wealth of ideas along with some solutions flowed from the discussion in those groups.

Jane was the afternoon’s scribe with the result that there are ten pages of rich insights – the kind of insight which no tick-box questionnaire can ever produce.

We hope that there will be a follow-up session in which we could put some of our practical queries to local professionals.

The overriding themes to emerge were not unexpected; we need at that late time of life to maintain control with as much independence as possible, to be valued, to have dignity and to be blessed with friends.