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People are living longer now than ever before with record numbers reaching their 70s and 80s. According to the ONS 16% of the UK's population is aged over 65, by far the largest proportion since records began. The reasons for this are fairly obvious improvements in medical science, better living conditions and improved diets. We are living longer and having fewer children. We now live in a society where 65 is late middle-age, and where news items report on octogenarians climbing mountains and taking degrees.

The rest of us seem likewise to be adjusting to our increasing life expectancy with people starting families in their thirties and forties. Time, we feel, is on our side and we still have plenty of it. A 29 year old such as myself may confidently expect to have their first child in five or six years' time just as they may also expect to work to the age of 70. But no matter it's all proportional. With three living grandparents all over 80 and looking fairly strong I can be assured, barring accidents, of making it to 85 at least. Or so it would seem.

The future is intangible, and life expectancy variable. Perhaps the 30-somethings of today will have long lives but it's hard to tell what about the impact of binge drinking, lack of exercise, consumption of fast food, chaotic and stressful lives? Or will medical developments stay one step ahead? Of course, it's impossible to know.

Few people are adequately saving for their old age. The reasons for this are varied but most when asked will point to some vague notion of wanting to enjoy now' and spend it while I'm young', working either on the assumption that now is the best' time of life and afterwards it can only degenerate or, more commonly, that they will be able to work for a long time, never needing to slow down or take some sort of retirement. As Benjamin Franklin observed, "all would live long but none would be old".

The problem here is that while people's physical ills can be cured, there is little evidence that our mental, intellectual health can be rescued in equal proportion. Although I know many people over 85 who can still walk and talk and manage around the house, most show strong evidence of memory disappearing and of the onset of dementia in some form. It seems that while we are happy to patch people up physically and send them back into the world we aren't too bothered about whether they can still remember where they live or even who they are. Besides, while a person may be alive for a long time many

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