A wonder drug for the elderly... playtime with lively little ‘uns
Hamish wants to play, but he’s shy. The other children are all gathered round the painting table, drawing name tags, but hamish is alone in the corner... until his new friend, amaya, gets involved.
amaya won’t take no for an answer. When games and presents don’t coax timid hamish out of his shell, she drags a teacher across to add authority to her pleas. soon, hamish is rolling around on the floor, being a lion, and everyone’s got the giggles.
it’s a typical nursery scene, except that hamish is 88 years old and a retired insurance executive.
The clumsily named Old People’s Home For Four-Year- Olds ( C4) deserves a much more pithy and apt title: second Childhood. Based in a Bristol retirement community, it takes ten oldies — several in their late 80s — and watches the effect of unleashing ten four-year-olds in the residents’ lounge.
Gone are those quiet mornings of newspapers and idle conversation, to be replaced by finger-painting, silly songs and lots of squealing.
This is much more than a heart- warming observational documentary, though only a terminal misery-guts could watch the whole hour without giving in to a big soppy smile. a serious issue underpinned the storybook sessions and make-believe games.
We’re hardwired to form strong bonds across the generations. The pensioners naturally adored the little ’uns, even if they’d never had children of their own. But the fouryear- olds fell in love with the oldsters too, in an instant.
Children who might be struck dumb by the appearance of younger adults will often trust an octogenarian. One of the most touching moments of the programme came on the second morning, when a little girl hurled herself into the arms of an elderly lady she had befriended the day before.
it’s easy to imagine how this instinct evolved. in early human societies, older members of the clan who were too frail to hunt or plough must have helped out with the babies. What else was there to do — bingo and homes Under The hammer hadn’t been invented.
But modern society, which often segregates its seniors instead of keeping them with their families, severs this bond. That’s hard for young parents, who could always do with extra help, and it’s sad for the children, who are robbed of valuable wisdom and affection.
Worst of all, it can be lethal for older people. The improvement in health of the ten residents was so dramatic, it was almost miraculous, as aches and depressions evaporated. any pill that could do half as much would be a wonder drug.
it took a baby to make depressed copper helen Weeks (myanna Buring) smile during the last moments of In The Dark (BBC1). Too late — this has been such a wretched drama it was way beyond any happy ending.
helen continued to lash out at people who rubbed her up the wrong way, without so much as a reprimand from her Chief inspector. This time, she dragged a suspect through an office lobby by her hair, and smashed a computer keyboard over a colleague’s head.
if anyone looked askance, she snarled: ‘it’s my hormones!’ helen was supposed to be nine months pregnant, though it was obviously a football up her jumper — it swung from side to side like a pendulum when she ran.
Even unintentional laughs like that were rare. This was turgid stuff, laden with dreary explanations of which character betrayed the other, as if we cared. Let’s hope we never see it again.