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On All Things Considered this week (Sunday 1 April at 8.31am, repeated Thursday 5 April at 6.03pm), Roy Jenkins and a panel of guests discuss the place of the elderly in society and how they are cared for.

Ian Paisley, 81 this week, has led his party into a historic agreement in Northern Ireland. Shirley Bassey is in the line-up for this year's Glastonbury pop festival - at 70. Claiming our bus pass at 60 does not necessarily mean that our most useful and exciting days are behind us.

There is, of course, a significant downside to the fact that many of us are living a lot longer. We might worry about how we'll cope with increasing frailty, growing dependence and anxiety about who'll take care of us.

It's a worry shared by those with responsibility for ageing relatives - how will they steer through the maze of dilemmas about health and accommodation and money, when they are getting no younger themselves?

Joining Roy Jenkins to explore these issues are Una Kroll, one of the first women ordained as an Anglican priest in Wales. After a lifetime of caring for others as a medical doctor, a mother and a minister, she's now living in sheltered accommodation.

Also, Marcus Wyn Robinson, a Presbyterian minister at Bethel and Llanrug near Caernarfon, who has the care of his elderly mother to consider, and Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok, a writer and former headmistress living in Ceredigion. With her husband Dan she's been responsible for three parents who have lived into their 90s. They have just written the book, What Do You Do When Your Parents Live Forever?

Further information:

What Do You Do When Your Parents Live Forever?: A Practical Guide to Caring for the Elderly
By Dan Cohn-Sherbok & Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok
ISBN-10: 1846940281

Living Life to the Full: A Guide to Spiritual Health in Later Years
By Una Kroll
ISBN-10: 0826480799

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