After five years, I am handing over the editorship of the journal to Tony Warnes. I am delighted with his appointment since he was an energetic and successful Reviews Editor of Ageing and Society between 1987 and 1997 and has supported the journal in many other ways. As chair of the British Society for Gerontology between 1995 and 2000, he was very active in establishing international and multidisciplinary links, and I am sure that his continuing commitment, contacts and wealth of knowledge (evident indeed in this edition) will serve the journal well.

Last year I presented a paper at the Third International Symposium on Cultural Gerontology held in Visby, Sweden. For this, I reviewed the 117 articles that were published in volumes 17 to 20 of Ageing and Society (Bytheway 2002). Including a variety of surveys (but excluding national census data), the 117 articles draw upon interviews with approximately 22,500 older people and include the quoted words of about 490 (many of whom are introduced to the reader with pseudonyms and personal descriptions). In this respect, I feel that older people have a real presence in the journal and that this has generated valuable insights into later life in a range of contrasting societies. That said, it is also true that the vast majority of contributors to the journal are based in, or linked to, universities and only a very few make any reference to their own sense of age or to any personal alliance with organisations of, or representing, older people.