Past twenty-one years of age, a striking new cover and a new editor: is Ageing & Society about to be radically transformed? Not at all, but over the next five years it will aim to be even better at the things it has been doing well. To stretch the life course analogy, having reached a ‘mature age’ and with an accomplished juvenilia, the paths that promise most are well defined. The achievement to date has been impressive, and the strong foundation creates a larger potential. It is in this context and spirit that I take up the editorship in succession to Bill Bytheway. The editorial policy will of course be frequently re-examined and refined, but neither the editorial board nor I wish to see the journal's core ambitions and values change. My aims are to help authors achieve these to an even higher standard, and particularly to raise the title's reputation for originality, for the quality of the research that it reports, and for its standards of communication. The goal is to raise the ‘impact’ of Ageing & Society, in citation indicators and, more importantly, in its contributions to understanding and to the formation of opinion and policy.