Donald Gould

Society

Let's ban retirement

• 13 March 2008

Taken from The New Statesman 29 March 1968 The problem of what to do with old people is not a new one for policymakers. Thirty years ago, the New Statesman's medical correspondent, Donald Gould, wrote this wry article on the situation of the "silver knobs". In his opinion, there were only two ways to deal with their plight and save public money - compulsory euthanasia for everybody once they reached the age of 60, or letting the old carry on in paid work for as long as they wanted. Selected by Robert Taylor