This issue achieves 25 years of publication of Ageing & Society and, you might wish to know, the 15,000th page. The silver anniversary will be celebrated in several modest ways. To begin with the beginning, Cambridge University Press has established an electronic version of the first issue on the journal's web pages, and made it accessible free-of-charge to all. Volume 1 included several notable and still-cited papers: those most often remembered are the foundation essays in ‘critical gerontology’ by Peter Townsend and Alan Walker, but there were many other strong and original contributions.