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¹⁷ e.g. Rosow, I., ‘Old People’, op. cit.Google Scholar, Lowenthal, M. and Robinson, B., ‘Social Networks and Isolation’, op. cit.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Abrams, M., Beyond Three Score and TenGoogle Scholar, Mitcham, . Age Concern England, 1980.Google Scholar

¹⁹ An intensive study of elderly widows using similar methods is described in detail by Matthews, Sarah; The Social World of Old Women, op. citGoogle Scholar. The techniques and goals of depth interviewing are discussed in Lofland, J., Analysing Social Settings, Belmont California, Wadsworth, 1971Google Scholar, and Glaser, B. G. and Strauss, A. L., The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Chicago, Aldine, 1967Google Scholar. On participant observation', see Becker, H., ‘Problems of Inference and Proof in Participant Observation’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 23, 1958, pp. 652–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ The problems and potentials of research friendships are discussed in Faraday, A. and Plummer, K., ‘Doing Life Histories’, Sociological Review, Vol. 27, 1979, pp. 773–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the same publication see Spencer, L. and Dale, A., ‘Integration and Regulation in Organisations’, pp. 679–702Google Scholar on the differences between the competing research paradigms.

²¹ The identity and social role of the research worker are part of the ethnographic description. See Myerhoff, B. and Simic, A., Life's Career: Aging -cultural variations on growing old, California, Sage, 1978Google Scholar, an anthropological study of ageing in different cultures conducted by research workers who were themselves members of those cultures.

²² Hymes, D., quoted by Simic, A., ‘Aging and the Aged in Cultural Perspective’Google Scholar, in Myerhoff, B. and Simic, A., Life's Career, op. cit.Google Scholar

²³ An excellent example of the anthropologist at work is Myerhoff, Barbara in Number our Days, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1980Google Scholar. In this study of elderly Jewish Americans at a senior citizens' centre, the anthropologist's interpretations are discussed, as they develop, with key informants.

²⁴ The nature of the discontinuity, and strategies adopted to cope with it, are rather different for non-working wives whose husbands give up work. The analysis concentrates upon the situation of those who have given up a role: single, ex-career women, the formerly married and one currently married ex-professional.

²⁵ See, for instance, Klein, J. F., Samples from English Culture, Routledge, 1965CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a synthesis of community studies. Working-class patterns in friendship and neighbouring indicate a reluctance to become too closely involved with neighbours for fear of exploitation. Neighbours, in working-class areas particularly, keep themselves to themselves.

²⁶ Ward, R., ‘The Never Married in Later Life’, Journal of Gerontology, Vol. 34, No. 6, pp. 861–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ The literature suggests that, with increasing age, the involvement with relatives of one's own generation becomes strengthened, though the nature of the sibling relationship shows great variability. Interaction and types of commitment among older siblings has been a relatively neglected part of the study of family networks. See Lowenthal, M. and Robinson, B., ‘Social Networks and Isolation’, op. cit.Google Scholar

²⁸ For an evaluation of research findings on the nature of kinship affiliations in later life, see Lowenthal, M. and Robinson, B., ibid.

²⁹ See Bott, E., Family and Social Network, London, Tavistock, 1971Google Scholar; Mitchell, J. C., Social Networks in Urban Situations, U.K., Manchester University Press, 1969Google Scholar, Fischer, C. S. et al. , Networks and Places, op. citGoogle Scholar. Relatively little is known about the network characteristics of older people.

³⁰ Abrams, M., Beyond Three Score and Ten, op. cit.Google Scholar, discusses the relative importance of historical and biographical factors in the interpretation of leisure patterns in the elderly. For a systematic investigation of the issue see Bengtson, V. and Cutler, N., ‘Generations and intergenerational relations: perspectives on age groups and social change’Google Scholar, in Binstock, and Shanas, (eds), Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences, op. cit.Google Scholar

³¹ There are, of course, some life-long ‘loners’ for whom the absence of intimacy is a comfortable condition. See Stephens, J.Loners, Losers and Lovers, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1976.Google Scholar

³² Conditions of sickness or disability are intensely frustrating and when compounded by pain they can produce a state of irritability which alienates friends and increases social isolation. One of the most alienating conditions must be deafness, which makes verbal communication difficult and contact by telephone (a vital medium for women who have been physically mobile in their lifetimes) impossible. In cases of deafness it is difficult to retain the friends one has, let alone to make new ones. See Thomas, Alan and Herbst, Katia, ‘Social and psychological implications of acquired deafness’, British Journal of Audiology 14, 1980, pages 76–85CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, for an account of loneliness among hearing-impaired people.

³³ Several writers have commented on the importance of the life review, most recently Myerhoff, B. and Simic, A. (eds), Life's Career, op. citGoogle Scholar. See also Myerhoff, B. and Tufte, V., ‘Life History as Integration: personal myth and aging’, The Gerontologist, Vol. 15, 1975, pp. 541–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Butler, R. N., ‘An Interpretation of Reminiscence in the Aged’, in Neugarten, B. L. (ed.), Middle Age and Aging, Chicago, 1968.Google ScholarPubMed

³⁴ Although generalisations are not possible on the basis of a sample gained through introductions and participant observation within particular social networks, this finding is echoed in studies based on formal survey methods, such as that by Mark Abrams and reported in Age Concern manifesto series 32, The Attitudes of the Retired and the Elderly, 1974. See also, Miller, S. J., ‘Will the real “Old Woman” please stand up?’, in Atchley, R. C. et al. , (eds), Social Problems of Aging - Readings, Belmont, Wadsworth, 1978.Google Scholar

³⁵ This accords with the findings of Gubrium, J. in ‘Marital desolation and the evaluation of everyday life in old age’, op. cit.Google Scholar

³⁶ Gubrium, J., ‘Being Single in Old Age’, op. cit.Google Scholar, 1975, comes to similar conclusions.

³⁷ In this they resemble some of the retiring middle-class men, described by Crawford, Marion, ‘Retirement and Disengagement’, Human Relations, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 255–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar