My talk to Byron Shire Council last week about the invisible ageing people in our shire was introducing a proposal which I called ‘The Ministry of Ageing’, a community-led initiative to provide our old people with a platform to speak for themselves, instead of the current top-down assistance, usually lacking empathy and, often, relevance.
As well as providing an ‘Elders Hub’ as a central gathering and communication place, I also proposed a series of affordable courses, both because they’re relevant (like ‘Yoga for the decrepit’ and ‘How to stay sane while you’re losing your memory’) and also because humour is a good way of changing the frame through which we view ageing.
And yes, there are many old people in this Shire who struggle to pay rent and run a car and who need support from our community to enjoy the full flowering of their lives, which is the joy of growing old. Let’s give them a voice?
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
