STEPHEN LEWIS celebrates the charity which has been improving the lives of older people for 30 years.

THE aisles of York Minster will be packed next Tuesday for a special service. Among the throng of mainly older people gathered there will be the familiar crumpled features of Look North presenter Harry Gration, and Sister Agatha from the Bar Convent in York, who will give the address.

The reason for this gathering? To celebrate 30 years of work in the city by the volunteers of Age Concern York.

The celebrations will go beyond a service at the Minster. Afterwards, many of the charity's most loyal and dedicated volunteers have been invited to a tea party in the historic surrounds of Guildhall, where they will be presented with long service certificates by guest of honour Harry Gration.

The 30th birthday of a charity such as Age Concern is a cause worth celebrating. Down the years it has been a tireless champion of a sector of society that has grown steadily more marginalised in an age increasingly dedicated to the values of youth and commercialism.

With the number of people living to a ripe, and active, old age on the increase and the average age of the population steadily rising, its work - and the work of organisations like it - has never been more important.

Age Concern York was formed in 1971. In its early years, says present-day chief officer Sally Hutchinson, it concentrated on providing services to support elderly people in the city. It is work that has continued to the present day - but the charity has increasingly become a political and campaigning organisation, too.

Down the years, especially following the Yuppie 'greed is good' decade of the Eighties, the status of older people in society has been steadily ebbing away, says Sally.

"We have become a very commercial kind of society, and old people have not been seen as being able to contribute very much. They have been seen as a drain rather than a resource.

"Just look at the value of pensions. That is very much a double-edged sword, because often people are valued by how much money they have. The less money given to older people, the less they have and the less they are valued."

It is a perception that has become ingrained in society. Even employers are guilty of discrimination towards older people, says Angela Barham, Age Concern York's In Safe Hands care organiser.

"Commercial companies don't see themselves as modern if they have older people on their workforce," she says. That is something that Jeffrey Mortimer, who takes over as the charity's new chairman next month, has experienced at first hand.

When he was put out of work from his job as a personnel manager at the old ABB carriageworks ten years ago in his early fifties, he found it almost impossible to get a job again - and he put it down to his age.

He wrote letter after letter. "Several of the employers who bothered to reply to my letters just gave me that veiled intimation that I was not being considered because of my age," he says.

That attitude - on the part of employers and society in general - has to change says Age Concern, because older people do have an enormous amount to contribute - in skills, experience, enthusiasm and readiness to work on a paid or unpaid basis.

As the proportion of older people in the population grows, those skills, that experience, will be needed.

The value of the contribution that older people can make is demonstrated by the work of Age Concern itself. Almost all the work is done by volunteers - most of whom are in the category generally thought of as "elderly".

This ranges from advice and information on benefits, to hospital after-care, befriender projects and 'respite' schemes such as In Safe Hands, where volunteers look after elderly people with Alzheimer's Disease for a few hours, giving their full-time carers the chance of a break.

There are also schemes to offer practical help around the home and in the garden so frail, older people can still be house-proud, plus many more, most aimed in one way or another at helping older people to continue to be able to live independently in their own homes.

Many of the volunteers providing the services are older than those they are helping, says Sally. "Age is not, and should not be the issue. It is about the ability and willingness to contribute."

There are signs that elderly people are at increasingly beginning to stand up and be counted. During the last three years, working through the forum of a Government initiative, Better Government For Older People, they have set up an advocacy group in York to speak up for the city's older residents.

Hopes are high that a City of York councillor will be chosen as Older People's Champion - and there are even plans for an Older People's Assembly in the city. None of this is before time. "We should value being older," says Angela Barham. "We need to change our attitudes." Thanks to Age Concern, it shouldn't take another 30 years for that to happen.

Updated: 10:21 Thursday, September 27, 2001