This book is based on the contributions of very many people. Some have also been main or co-authors of particular chapters and I am very grateful to them for their excellent collaboration in the making of this book: Amina Begum, Marie Gianelli, Saba Jaleel, Marie Mills, Ignat Petrov, Peter Speck, John Spreadbury and Peter Wilkinson. Others have contributed to the studies reported through sharing in the data collection, helping in the study design, and generally developing the thinking necessary to conduct such studies. I mention in particular previous students and colleagues: Abdulaziz Aflakseir, Roxana Carare, Elizabeth Forbes, Sacha Guglani, Victoria Hui, Christine Ivani-Chalian, Julia Lyubchenko, Andrew McCulloch, Fionnuala McKiernan, Maureen Robinson, Anita Saigal and Andrea Yap. Others have given help and encouragement at important times and/or shared significant data with us. These are too many to name but we would like to mention at least the following persons: Cyriaque Bigirimana, Georgiy Chystiakov, Grace Davie, Francis Davis, Brian Dyas, Sandro Lagomarsini, Rob Merchant, John Owen, Andrei Podolskij, Colin Pritchard, Euan Sadler, David Sillince, Eleanor Tarbox, Ben Wilkinson and David Voas.

Although I have been critical in this book of the neglect of the study of religion and spirituality by gerontologists in the UK, I am grateful to many colleagues in the British Society of Gerontology who have encouraged me to persist in work in this field, particularly to Chris Phillipson, but also to, among others, Simon Biggs, John Bond, Ricca Edmondson, Malcolm Johnson, Sally Richards, John Vincent, Alan Walker and Tony Warnes. I also gladly acknowledge the support of Age Concern England and Help the Aged (now joined together as Age UK) for this topic, and especially Ann Webber and Gerry Burke, and also the encouragement of fellow members of the Christian Council on Ageing, and especially Mannes Tidmarsh and Albert Jewell. I should also like to acknowledge research grant awards from the Economic and Social Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the Nuffield Foundation and the University of Southampton, and the support of diverse colleagues in the last organisation.

Last but not least, we want to thank all the older interviewees who have been so generous with their time and have provided the bulk of the material of this book.