Raising a child used to be the province of a whole village where discipline was a prerogative reserved for the elders of the community. Those were the days when the average size of a family was eight.

However, I have known of women who have had up to 20 pregnancies and births and have ended up by saving as many as 15 children. Some have had a large number of children but only managed to save eight or 10.

There is, however, another side to the joys of birth and the sadness of a high infant mortality rate. It stares us all squarely in the face when we have to confront the onset of old age. Everything slows down. The physical gymnastics that we had been able to perform in youth unobtrusively slip away, your sight begins to fail and finally we experience “senior moments” where we forget and lose specificity in everything that we do.

The onset of this change in the pace of our physical activity can be accelerated by motor vehicle and other accidents and by the attrition of the results of our chosen lifestyle.

Whatever the cause may be, we eventually have to accept Shakespeare’s Seven Stages of Man and whether we believe it or not, bow to the edicts of the Bible that our years are three-score and 10, but by reason of strength we may manage to live longer.

The gravamen of this article is about the quality and enjoyment of life that our older folk have to undergo in the winter of their existence.

Modern technological advances, internal migration and societal changes that are beyond our control adversely affect our lives. What we have to address is how the nature of our villages and our city environment has imperceptively changed, leaving our older people stranded like beached whales floundering in the shallows of the twilight of life without direction or help.

This phenomenon was recognised in the 1920s by our Governor, Sir Eustace Fiennes, whose socialist background impelled him to initiate programmes in Antigua that are still relevant today.

I salute him, especially for drilling for sub-surface water – Fiennes Well; attempting to take care of health problems — vide the lepers; and attempting to solve the problems associated with old age in a colonial society — vide the Fiennes Institute, derisively called the Poor House by the general populace.

You may wish to call the results of his efforts by any name you desire, but when we consider the existence at that time of slums like Gray’s Farm, Garling’s Land, Pig Village, The Point and Booby Alley, the changing social conditions in the villages, the influx of people to St John’s and its environs, the construction of the Fiennes Institute near to Holberton Hospital and Lady Nugent Cemetery for black paupers, it was a planning feat.

Poor, old people had two places to go — either Fiennes Institute or Lady Nugent Cemetery, both of which were in close proximity to each other.

My readers will forgive me if I interject that “thank God for the PLM, whose introduction of the Social Security Scheme has saved thousands of people from financial and social embarrassment, especially in their old age.”

I was in Parliament, driving home the virtues of the scheme, when the whole ALP parliamentary posse got up, shouting their opposition to the scheme and, declaring that they would scrap it when they regained power, started tearing up the Social Security Legislation and, in the ensuing hullabaloo, walked out of Parliament. House Speaker Cecil Hewlett was forced to adjourn Parliament temporarily. They hated the guts of George Walter so much that he dared not attempt to mediate and asked me to talk to them.

I worked on my friend Comrade Joseph Myers first, then Comrade Ernest Williams. Comrade Denfield Hurst was the most obdurate and difficult. My personal friend, Comrade Donald Sheppard said, “We don’t want the people to feel that we are opposing the bill for opposition sake. Even if we return to Parliament, we are not supporting that bill.”

I agreed to tone down my harshness towards the comrades, but Comrade Denfield Hurst said to me, “We are not supporting this wicked scheme. You know that our answer is no and that we are going to give back to the people all the money that they have put into this wickedness when we get back in power.”

Subsequently, as chairman of the scheme, Comrade Hurst was able to seek medical treatment in New York from Social Security and was buried in grand style by the same scheme for which he tore up the legislation. What irony! The comrades have not given back any money to the people yet, even though they spent nearly 30 consecutive years in power. All the old folks who have benefitted immensely from Social Security should pause and think on these things.

As a teenager, I used to have a girlfriend who was in her late 80s. I used to fetch her water, run her messages and do odd jobs for her. She was by no means broke and she used to tell me, “You see all those relatives hanging around me like carrion waiting for me to die? Not one of them has a basic interest in me. All of them are interested in ‘dead leff’. When I am gone, the fight is going to be deadly. Old age is a b****! If you don’t have money to pay for your own upkeep, darg better than you. If you get soft in the head, you better off dead. Young man, make enemies of no man and stay close to God! Old age is a complex paradox, filled with a lot of twists, turns and uncertainties.”

Amnesia, old age’s twin is a sneaky, instant fellow who suddenly descends on you like, as Coleridge says, “The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out/At one stride comes the dark.”

Suddenly, old age was a word which began with a “B”, rhymed with “itch”, enveloped you and finished you, permanently!