Reaching out across ages
OLD PEOPLE’S HOME FOR 4 YEAR OLDS C4, 9pm
“HOW old is very, very old?” It’s a tough question for a four-year-old to answer, but the little girl thinks very carefully before replying confidently: “37.”
Just imagine how mindblowing it will be to find she’ll be hanging out with people in their nineties? This is a second series that sees pensioners mixing with youngsters to see if it can help with age-related problems such as loneliness, mood, memory and mobility – and to see if the elderly can improve the kids’ learning, too.
In the three-month experiment at one of the largest retirement villages on the outskirts of Nottingham, 10 fouryear-olds have been volunteered by their parents to visit a specially built nursery.
Their classmates include 102-year-old Sylvia, who was born during World War One, and who gave birth to her first child during the Blitz in World War Two. We also meet 97-year-old Victor, who was on the beach at Dunkirk at the age of 18.
Nursery teacher Libby runs activities like drawing pictures of each other and dancing, as well as outdoor excursions.
There’s lots of fun, but also many emotional scenes. Victor won’t dance with a partner because no one could replace his wife Marjorie. He hasn’t coped too well since she died in 2011.
Elsewhere, four-year-old Scarlett, who lost her mum a year ago, develops a friendship with shy 84-year-old Beryl.
And Lavinia, 81, hopes to bring little Phoenix out of his shell. It’s feelgood television.