OOPS #17 Still Curious

After a lifetime as a social worker and community development practitioner, WIGO member Peter Durrant  remains deeply curious about people, communities and the world around him. When he sent me the reflection below, I found myself reading it twice. It isn’t really a poem, and it isn’t quite prose either. Instead, it’s a reflective inventory of an ordinary life—shops, family, an allotment, a blocked sink, Radio 4, YouTube, neighbours, books and hope. Together they remind us that a good life in older age is rarely made up of dramatic moments. More often, it is built from small acts of usefulness, gratitude, curiosity and connection.

For me, at eighty-eight, and living alone in strange accommodation where you have to be fifty-five to live there, I find that walking a short distance to the shops, having an allotment with help from colleagues, considering ways of still being able to cope (I’ve just mended the blocked sink), being lucky to have a family and five grandchildren (although one is in the middle of a painful divorce), still helping them when they need help, thinking how lucky one is in this strange world of ours, and always measuring the things one can achieve with satisfaction, all matter.

And I’m, hopefully, having a knee injection soon to solve my severe walking problems.

And, of course, Radio 4, reading, watching the decent programmes on television, trying to keep in touch with my fellow residents, and not least having YouTube, which constantly amazes me, and The Guardian on my tablet.

Peter Durrant
Social worker, community development practitioner, allotment gardener and lifelong learner.

Editor’s note: Peter would love to hear from other WIGO members who enjoy talking about community development, ageing and the world around us. If you are keen to connect contact me at info@wigo.org.uk