Power to The Zimmers

I know this might be old news but please forgive me. I have an irresistible urge to stand on my soap box again.

A couple of nights ago, I watched a repeat of ‘Power to the People’ which featured ‘The Zimmers.’ I’m sure you’ll have heard of them. I had, but I didn’t catch the documentaries when they were first aired on the television. Thankfully I was able to rectify this omission two nights ago.

‘Power to the People’ was a lighted hearted documentary with a devastating message about a sad & terrible story, namely the cruelty and stultifying boredom endured by the elderly citizens who live in this country. How dare we treat the elderly like this! How dare we shunt them into old people’s homes & allow them to waste away. Our apathy is a disgrace.

If young children were treated in this way, the horror & outrage in our society would fell the Government of this country in a matter of days. Bar a few protests, we are disgracefully unconcerned about the care of the elderly & the attention we pay to them & their needs.

We are going to get old. This is going to affect you and me and her and him. What are we going to do about it?




Of the people featured in the documentary, I particularly fell for Winifred who is THE most wonderful lady. She's a journalist, she’s 99 & she’s gorgeous! She does need a little help to look after herself and the only option available for her is to live in a residential care home. She's lived in 25 homes so far - she gets so bored because there's no one for her to talk to so she keeps moving homes! I can empathize with this. Can’t you?

Posing as a sound recordist with a small BBC documentary unit which was filming outside the Houses of Parliament. she managed to charm MPs into handing over their watches in the hope that one of them would lose the plot & have her arrested for stealing a watch. She wanted to publicise her belief that she would be better off living in a prison than in yet another residential home!

She has a point. She has a damn good point. Would an open prison be allowed to treat its inmates in the same way as we treat the older members of our society?

So Mr Brown, Mr Cameron & Mr Campbell -what are we going to do about it ?

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