The Tick of Two Clocks

`At 88 years old, broadcaster and Labour peer Joan Bakewell shows little sign of slowing down her work rate, yet she has had to confront her age in another way - downsizing' ? Radio TimesWhen Joan Bakewell, author and famous champion of the older people's right to a good and fruitful life, decided that she could no longer remain in her old home, she had to confront what she has called 'the next slice of life.'Old age is no longer a blip in the calendar, just a few declining years before the end. Old age is now a major and important part of life: It should command as much thought - even anxiety - as teenagers give to exam results and young marrieds how many children to have . . . I am in my 80s and moving towards the end of my life. But in a more actual sense, I have moved from my dear home of 50 odd years into another . . . the home where I will be until the end. Writing here of how it happened is both a reconciliation of what cannot be avoided, and a confrontation with the inevitable.Disposing of things accumulated during a long life, saying goodbye to her home and the memories of more than fifty years, managing family expectations; it all takes a steely kind of courage ... but then there were new projects such as planning the colours and layout of a new, smaller flat. Old age needs projects she has always said and in using the tale of her own life , Joan Bakewell tells us a story of our times and how she is learning to live to the sound and tune of The Tick of Two Clocks: the old and the new.