British Journal of Social Work (2010) 40, 1118–1134
doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcq001
Advance Access publication January 27, 2010

Perceptions and Presentations of Living
with Everyday Risk in Later Life
Joanna Bornat* and Bill Bytheway
Joanna Bornat is Professor of Oral History at the Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open
University. She is joint editor of Oral History and joint reviews editor of Ageing and Society and
a member of the Academy of Social Sciences. Her research interests include remembering in late
life, methodological issues in interviewing and the re-use of archived qualitative data and
intergenerational relationships within changing families in a changing society. She is a grant
holder in the ESRC Timescapes Programme and principal investigator for the ESRC-funded
South Asian overseas-trained doctors and the development of geriatric medicine. She has coauthored a number of edited collections, including Oral History Health and Welfare (2000),
The Turn to Biographical Methods in Social Sciences (2000), Biographical Methods and
Professional Practice (2004) and Developments in Direct Payments (2006). Bill Bytheway is
Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at the Open University. His
main interests are in ageism, the experience of ageing and research methods. He has recently
completed research on age discrimination (with Help the Aged), age and birthdays (with the
Mass-Observation Archive) and medication in later life. He is a Founding Fellow of the
British Society of Gerontology and a member of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was
editor of the journal Ageing and Society (1997–2001) and author of Ageism (Open
University Press, 1995).
*

Correspondence to Joanna Bornat, Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open University,
Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. E-mail: j.bornat@open.ac.uk

Abstract
In a context of neo-liberalism, individual responsibility for risk and the protection of
individuals from risk has led to risk management and assessment becoming central to
the practice of social work. Social workers’ involvement with older people tends to
occur in crisis situations, with the result that stereotypical understandings of the vulnerability of older people may be reinforced. Drawing on data from interviews and diaries,
the article presents a temporal analysis of the ways in which perceptions of risk are presented by older people themselves and the people close to them. It reveals how older
people link risk to family, health and social relations, and how they account for their
continuing survival. In interviews, older people present their lives as well ordered and
organised. By contrast, diaries that detail their everyday activities offer evidence of a
more active engagement in risk avoidance, suggesting that living with everyday risk is
a salient feature of late life. Integrating these two temporal framings, we argue for a
more processual understanding of risk in later life and how it is evaluated and experienced by older people.

# The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of
The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.

Living with Everyday Risk in Later Life 1119
Keywords: Ageing and older people, risk, social policy, social work, qualitative methods

Accepted: December 2009

Introduction
In this paper, we draw on data from recent research to discuss substantive
issues that emerge from a consideration of the meaning and management of
risk in the everyday lives of people over the age of seventy-five. In a society
with welfarist traditions, but moving rapidly in a neo-liberal direction
(Webb, 2006), risk assessment and management have become central to
the thinking and practice of social work through the increasing politicisation of its role (McLaughlin, 2008). Social work has become enmeshed in
the identification and codification of risk factors. This leads to policies
and practices, including the drive towards personalisation (Department of
Health, 2008), that impose responsibility for certainty on individuals and
that identify and target those seen as not managing their lives effectively
or as offering some kind of risk to society (Kemshall, 2002; Webb, 2006).
Risk tends to be associated in social work with assessing and preventing
the possibility of future harm (Webb, 2006) and has, as Kemshall (2002)
argues, replaced the meeting of need. This focus on protection has
certain consequences, some of which we discuss later in the article. At
this point, we would only suggest, with McLaughlin, that social policies
that rest on protection from risk ‘view us all as weak and vulnerable’
(McLaughlin, 2008, p. 131) and, with Ray et al. (2009), that seek to avert
risk-taking is ‘to promote and reinforce images of older people as passive
and dependent, and to deny personhood’ (Ray et al., 2009, p. 47). Indeed,
Tanner argues that ‘the freedom of risk-taking’ should be seen as ‘a fundamental right and part of everyday experience’ (Tanner, 1998, p. 21; see also
Jordan, 1990). However, given social work’s role in regulating and identifying failure in a context in which risk avoidance is seen as a civic duty of the
individual (Webb, 2006), such ideals may be hard to sustain or act upon, for
both the social worker and their clients, actual and potential.
Older people live with forms of risk that offer both opportunity and constraint. Opportunity is presented through retirement from paid work routines and, in contrast with previous cohorts of older people, the
de-institutionalisation of the life course (Bengtson et al., 2005) and a shift
away from normative expectations of age-appropriate behaviours and
involvements. With this come possibilities for a ‘third age’ of choice and
the selection of preferred identities and resistance to a feared ‘fourth age’
of frailty and dependence (Gilleard and Higgs, 2005, pp. 162 – 3). As at
other ages, risk in late life is very much future-oriented (Webb, 2006).
However, where risk is linked to safety and security and the future is

1120 Joanna Bornat and Bill Bytheway

projected as a state to be feared, then risk in late life may be experienced
more as a constraint and a curtailment of choice and independence.
The data on which we base our argument, consisting of diaries and life
history interviews, are both biographical and autobiographical as well as
qualitative and longitudinal. The contribution of biographical work to userfocused professional practice is well attested from studies that demonstrate
the value of an ‘intertwining of past and present’ in working to achieve individualised and appropriate outcomes (Chamberlayne et al., 2004, pp. 6 – 7).
Here, we argue that understanding risk in late life requires an appreciation
of its discursive production as well as its somatic presentation. By this, we
mean ways in which perceptions of risk are constructed socially, subjectively
and contextually, and experienced and anticipated through bodily experiences. From this, we argue that social work with older people involves recognising that living with risk is an ongoing process, open to rational evaluation
and preventive action on the part of the risk taker and those close to them.
However, this approach, which should be undertaken as a developing
process, actively engaging with the expressed preferences of an older
person, is unlikely to sit easily with assessments that are based on limited universalising predictions. Such assessments, determining access to resources,
draw on narrowly conceived notions of safety (Webb, 2006).
Beginning with a consideration of how risk has been theorised, we go on
to consider the implications of the manner of its assessment for work with
older people, before presenting our research methods and analysis, through
which we view ways in which risk is recognised, evaluated, negotiated and
acted upon in relation to social and bodily experiences. We conclude by
arguing that life with risk should be viewed developmentally as a negotiation that constantly entails compromises in response to the existential
realities of everyday late life.

Theorising and experiencing risk in late life
How risk is theorised has been consistently tested in relation to late life.
Indeed, within social and health policies, risk has a long genealogy, assessments of risk identifying who might be deserving of support in late life, and
segregating the recuperable from the irrecuperable (Pickard, 2009; Bornat
et al., forthcoming). Despite this, late life scarcely features in more general
theoretical debates of risk.
It has been argued that the theorising of Beck (1992) and Giddens (1991)
set the parameters within which social work theory has developed and
debated the realities of risk (McLaughlin, 2008). In neo-liberal times,
social policies, at one and the same time, demonise the welfare state yet
insert ever more intrusive means of centralised social and political
control within private areas of people’s lives. In this context, the discussion
of risk has become an instrument for the injection of concern about safety

Living with Everyday Risk in Later Life 1121

into everyday life and, with it, the privatisation and calculation of responsibility for protection from harm.
Where Beck (1992) argues that ‘advanced modernity’ is typified by
higher levels of risk, Giddens’ (1991) position is that risk is no greater,
but that perceptions of threat and danger have increased. Both see the consequences as greater levels of reflexivity as people seek ways to moderate,
maximise or avoid risk and, in so doing, engage critically with expert
opinion. They deploy available resources and take on individualised
responsibility for risk avoidance and ownership of the consequences of
their decision making (Lupton, 1999).
Late life presents challenges to ideas of individualised lifestyles that
assume rational risk management and the maximisation of advantage and
choice. For example, the significance of well-being takes on added meanings when linked to such basic aspects of the human condition as maintaining autonomy and independence in the face of financial insecurity or the
concerns of significant others. In particular, risk takes on a different character when the individual is attempting to delay or deal with the prospect
of foreseeable death. Late in life, the resources that are most important
to people appear to be personal health, one’s own or that of a partner.
Change in either may set limits on social engagement or may lead to a
change in location or the severing of meaningful friendship ties. For
younger people, changes in health status are not linked quite so closely to
threats to identity and lifestyle (Scott et al., 2009).
Overall, it would appear that in late life, Beck’s idea of ‘individualisation’
is, in its most positive sense, an aspiration rather than a goal. Indeed, it is
qualified by social policies that, as Webb (2006) points out, seek to regulate
and categorise risks and protect those perceived to be vulnerable. Assessment of risk is left to individuals until a crisis makes self-management too
risky. At that point, social work risk assessment takes over, with its attendant aims of rationing and standardising care practices (Webb, 2006).
Amongst the results of this for the individual are high levels of anxiety
about the future and about being identified as vulnerable. In other words,
social work intervention itself may be perceived by some as a risk in later
life. Social workers, as they attempt to balance personalisation and protection, are left in a difficult position when intervening in the lives of older
people for whom a lifetime of experience informs choice and preferences
and who may choose a life with risk over other options.

Assessing and reducing risk in later life
Wenger points out that when older people have a ‘robust support network’
of family, friends and neighbours, all living within five miles, ‘the need for
formal interventions occurs only at high levels of dependency’ (Wenger,
1997, p. 313). This is the most common of the five types of network that

1122 Joanna Bornat and Bill Bytheway

she identifies as prevalent in the UK. The contrasting ‘private restricted
support network’ in which people live alone and are distant from any kin
is the group most at risk of needing support and is ‘the dominant network
on social work caseloads, where it is four times as prevalent’ (Wenger,
1997, p. 315). One of the effects of this is that practitioners’ understanding
and experience of risk management in late life are determined largely by
persistent exposure to such situations. Richards and colleagues (2007) similarly argue that given eligibility criteria that lead to social workers working
with only the most vulnerable older people, they tend to have a biased
understanding of old age. This limited exposure will also be exacerbated
by the increasing tendency to work in specialist teams. A lack of experience
of working with a wider range of older people tends to reinforce the stereotypical view that old age is a time of high risk, limited ability and an
increased need for protection (Richards et al., 2007). This may lead to
people being defined by social workers as ‘at risk’ in order that they gain
access to resources (Ray et al., 2009). A focus on assessment and intervention may neglect a lifetime’s experience in surviving risk or of how managing risk is a continuing and developing process in everyday life.
Tools to assess risk that are based on checklists only exacerbate this situation, since they depend on a model of reality that is far from older people’s
life experience. Webb (2006) suggests that open-ended questioning may be
far more fruitful by providing richer insights into someone’s past and present
life. Most aids to risk assessment, however, tend to be based on survey
research that is typically quantitative and non-participative in style. As
evidence-based procedures for preventive intervention, they are similarly
limited, being easily quantified and providing measurable outcomes. This
can lead to uneasy partnerships when the tool aims both to ‘facilitate a
person-centred conversation suitable for older people’ and ‘be presented
and designed to support professional judgement’ (see Department of
Health, 2003, p. 2). Equality is likely to be difficult to maintain when outcomes are also measured against targets and funding constraints.
Studies that evaluate the perception of risk by older people themselves
reveal a greater range of complexity than is represented in these surveys
(McKenna, 1993). Attempts to enable professionals to measure and anticipate vulnerability tend to ignore the prior and continuing engagement of
older people in dealing with the ‘moral crises’ posed by critical health
changes and the prospect of death (Ferguson, 2001, p. 43). With a focus
on immediate risks, professional assessments displace the significance of
past time and focus on a present time depicted as a series of snapshots of
everyday action. Recommendations may be often imbued with ageist
expectations, preventing older people from knowing the full implications
of the decisions they are being encouraged to take.
Victor et al. (2005), for example, argue that interventions to reduce loneliness among older people neglect changes in older people’s lives and their
awareness of time passing. They conclude that a biographical approach,

Living with Everyday Risk in Later Life 1123

rather than one based on a ‘static, single point-in-time’, is most likely to
indicate when and who might be at risk. Loneliness takes different forms
and changes over time, and its ‘onset’ may have different ‘pathways’
(Victor et al., 2005, pp. 371 –2). So, we would argue, an assessment of risk
is just one event in the course of a complex and unfolding process.
Drawing on data from The Oldest Generation project, we have identified
a number of such pathways in analysing how people live with and articulate
risk in everyday lives. The Oldest Generation is one of seven projects in the
ESRC-funded Timescapes programme, RES-347-25-0003. Methodologically, Timescapes has generated qualitative longitudinal data with a view
to understanding family and close personal relationships over time and
through the life course. In this paper, we draw on three case studies and
the analysis focuses on risks associated with accidents, providing care, the
loss of independence and death. First, however, we provide a brief
summary of our project methods and the data that have emerged.

Sources and methods
The fieldwork for our project involves tracking twelve families, initially
over the course of eighteen months, by recording the biographies, past
and present, of their oldest members and setting these in the context of
unfolding family histories. A sample has been recruited purposively
through the UK-wide Open University network. The twelve were selected
from approximately forty volunteer families, using criteria based on sex,
age, living arrangements, class, ethnicity and geographical location. This
ensured that it was as diverse a sample as possible. The planned fieldwork
required someone aged seventy-five or more in each family to volunteer to
be ‘the senior’—a term we use to distinguish the interviewees from other
older people in their families, who would then be the focus of the research.
We also required one person to volunteer to act as ‘the recorder’. In one
family, the recorder is also the senior and in another, the recorder is the
senior’s husband. The other ten recorders are all of the younger generation:
seven daughters, two sons and a niece.
Repeat life history interviews with the senior enabled us to collect retrospective as well as prospective data. The first wave of interviews was undertaken between July and December 2007 and this focused on the individual’s
history and heritage, retrospective accounts of key life events and current
patterns of family and non-family contact. Life history interviewing does
not pre-judge biographies, allowing the interviewee to dictate those
events and experiences that have determined the course of their lives
(Gluck and Patai, 1991; Roberts, 2002; Bornat, 2004; Goodley et al., 2004;
Perks and Thomson, 2006; Reissman, 2008; McLeod and Thomson, 2009,
Chapter 3). In this, it is rather like social work in its traditional form,
before the introduction of the check-list approach to assessment.

1124 Joanna Bornat and Bill Bytheway

Over the same period, the recorder has kept and posted to the project
office a monthly diary and occasional photographs of family events. By
having diaries returned routinely every month, the project has maintained
regular contact with the families. The diaries, of course, offer accounts of
the seniors’ lives that are filtered through the views and experiences of
the recorders. There are substantial differences between the twelve families
in the relationship between senior and recorder, in the locations of where
they live and in their contact-keeping routines. Moreover, some recorders
sought to produce an account that was almost exclusively of the senior’s
lives whereas others sent us diaries that were much more broadly
focused. Nevertheless, wanting daily entries that extended over a period
of eighteen months, we realised that this was only possible if we allowed
families to participate in ways that drew upon, and reflected, their continuing family practices and personal inclinations and opportunities.
The two perspectives, diary and life history, present contrasting, sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory, accounts of late life. They
facilitate an understanding of the complex nature of risk and its management
within families, and the need for risk to be interpreted as a developing
process and continuing concern. Through their different styles and forms
of narrative, interviews and diaries uncover contrasting temporal effects
and responses to evidence of risk. In some instances, the life history interview
makes the senior’s way of life seem secure and manageable, whilst the diary
describes a more restricted, unpredictable and dependent existence.
During the course of the fieldwork, two of the seniors have died, in both
instances as a result of terminal illness. Of the other ten families, two recorders maintained their diaries for no more than six months. From the other
eight recorders, however, we have received a detailed record, largely day by
day, of the lives of the senior over a period of at least twelve months. In
total, we have received 145 monthly diaries. Most of the diaries are handwritten, but four have used e-mail, finding this more convenient.
Recognising the complexity of individual lives and family relationships, we
have not sought to obtain systematic data (Gubrium and Holstein, 2002). To
a large extent, we have allowed the participants to dictate the content of the
interviews and diaries. In particular, we have not inquired specifically into
the use of services, contact with professionals, risk or ways in which families
have sought to make members of the oldest generation feel more secure. In
our view, the serendipitous nature of the information gathered will reveal
how and why certain family relationships are sustained or change, and
what the consequences are for contact and support between the generations.

Analysis
Within the interviews and diaries of the twelve families, we first identified
all explicit references to contact with ‘social work’ or ‘social services’. It is

Living with Everyday Risk in Later Life 1125

quite likely, of course, that some contact has not been mentioned, but, if so,
this, arguably, indicates that it was not considered sufficiently relevant.
Conversely, when contact is mentioned, then we interpret this as something
that was seen to have some significance in understanding the everyday lives
of the seniors and their families.
In three of the families, there was no mention of either ‘social work’ or
‘social services’. They include a senior who was a resident in a nursing
home and another who has been a long-term carer for a disabled daughter.
In two other families, the only references were unrelated to the oldest generation. This includes Alan Shaw’s family (his name is a pseudonym, as are
the other names used in this paper); we discuss his experience of living with
risk in more detail below. And, in another three, the seniors, rather than
being clients or recipients of social care, were: one whose husband was
assessed for respite care whilst she travelled to attend a wedding; another
who contacted the social services on behalf of a neighbour; and a third,
Alice Watson, who attended an assessment meeting regarding the needs
of her disabled brother (see below).
Of the remaining four families, two seniors were involved in an assessment for the Carer’s Allowance. In one, the senior’s daughter, already
caring for her parents, had requested this, anticipating the possibility that
she might decide to retire from work. And, in the other, the senior was
assessed as the carer for his wife, who had dementia. This leaves two
families, the only two in which the senior was in direct contact with social
services as a result of their own particular needs. In one case, this occurred
in the final months of terminal illness and the support of social services was
part of a wider package centred on continuing medical treatment. Marion
Arthur, the senior in the second family, was visited in September 2008,
most probably by an occupational therapist employed by the social services,
about ways in which the risk of accidents might be reduced. Although the
outcome was that there was nothing more that could be installed to
reduce risks, there is much to be learnt from how this assessment fitted
into the wider context of Marion Arthur’s life.
In the rest of this article, we consider in more detail, first, Marion
Arthur’s experience of the risk of falling; second, that of Alice Watson in
supporting her brother and coping with the risks that he poses; and, third,
Alan Shaw, whose experience of health crises has generated a concern
with the risks these pose both for himself and his family.

Avoiding accidents
Marion Arthur (MR) was interviewed for the project on 30 August 2007. In
the course of this, she described her poor sense of balance. She said she had
fallen ‘more than once’ and had had to be helped up. She had bought a personal alarm: ‘If I fall I have to push a thing round my neck and somebody

1126 Joanna Bornat and Bill Bytheway

will ring up and say do I need local help or do I need an ambulance.’ She
said it was ‘really useful’, even though she had not used it yet. When
asked to elaborate about her ‘local help’, she described how a neighbour
would ‘come in from across the road’ and how there were other neighbours
who would help if needed.
On Monday, 26 November 2007, Marion had bladder problems and nose
bleeds and, following a visit from a doctor, was admitted to hospital. She
was discharged on the 28th and the following day, she was visited by
the GP and district nurse. She appeared to have recovered, but that
evening, she fell. This is what Adam, her husband, the recorder, wrote in
his diary:
On hearing a cry from the bedroom, I found she had just slipped off the side
of the bed, and from that position I know she is unable to climb in again.
I cannot lift her either. So I resorted to the alarm call (about 10.30) and
they managed to contact Fred and Margaret (who had been out when
I called). They lifted her up on to a chair and then she was able to get to
the shower room for a wash. She managed to get herself to bed then and
I thanked Margaret and Fred and let them go (Diary, 29.11.07).

So, this was an occasion, possibly the first, on which they had used the
alarm. Neighbours (Fred and Margaret) had come round and helped
Marion off the floor. The following day, she ‘got up, but couldn’t do
much’. Adam went shopping and, upon his return, found that two other
neighbours had called. There was no further trouble and, on 2 December,
Adam noted that her appetite was beginning to return. This, then, is evidence of the broader context in which ‘the social services’ called on the
Arthurs the following September to ‘inspect the house’ for possible
additional safety devices:
They decided our present arrangements are satisfactory. They also
assessed that we don’t need any other assistance for the time being
(Diary, 02.09.08).

From the interviews conducted with Marion, Adam filling in when she
couldn’t recall, we learn that the two of them have had a long life of managing opportunity when they had their own business, as well as adversity,
coping with the death of one of their three daughters. They work as a
unit, but with Adam as manager of a lifestyle that is deeply embedded
both spatially and socially in the area they had retired to some twenty
years earlier. Yet, the interview shows another side to their partnership
when Marion was asked about turning points in her life (in this and the following extracts, ‘I’ stands for ‘interviewer’):
MR: (coughing) Well, in a way, it would be . . . when we decided to form a
limited company Agar Scientific Ltd and I went to work in the company,
looking after the money, looking after the cash coming in and out. That
was definitely a sort of turning point.
I: Mm, why do you feel that was a turning point?

Living with Everyday Risk in Later Life 1127
MR: Well I’d just been the housewife before quite happily. But when this
happened I realised I could cope pretty well with this, better than almost
anybody else in our employ. And did. (laughing)
I: It was a success at any rate wasn’t it?
MR: Yes it was a great success. It’s still going strong (Interview, 27.04.09).

At these and other points in the interviews, Marion’s individuality and
strength of character are shown to complement Adam’s resourcefulness.

Risk and responsibility for other people
Alice Watson’s younger brother, Jack, was born in 1935 and has suffered
from cerebral palsy all his life. She has constantly faced the risks involved
in looking after his interests: the stress and logistics of ‘getting it right’. In
her interview, she recounted how, as a child, she had been embarrassed
by him and now feels ashamed of herself. Her mother died early and, in
adult life, Alice and her father had to battle with the authorities on
behalf of Jack. In the course of recounting Jack’s history, she told horrific
tales of his treatment in large mental hospitals. When their father retired,
he looked after Jack at home until his own well-being was threatened by
Jack’s behaviour:
. . . it carried on until my father was dozing one day and I think Jack wanted
company but you see by this time—and I’ll go back to that in a minute—he
was walking with two sticks. And he must have been sitting there and he
must have, I don’t know why, but he’d hit my father with the sticks. My
father was sitting opposite him and his knuckles had all swollen up and
the GP then said ‘Haven’t you got the message?’ he said ‘Now you are
really going to have to do something’ (Interview, 04.09.07).

Through an adult placement scheme organised by the social services, Jack now
lives with a carer. In the interview, Alice described her as a ‘fantastic woman’.
She has just two permanent residents and occasionally takes in a third.
Initially in her diary (although her son was the recorder, Alice sometimes
made her own entries in her diary), Alice reports her regular visits to Jack
during the course of the winter of 2007/08. Generally, she was ‘pleased and
happy’ with his care and carer, and ‘thankful’ she was able to be with him
without having the ‘burden of physical care’. He regularly visited a day
centre and ‘appeared happy in his surroundings and the staff are so
caring and interested in their charges’. Evidence of anxiety over risks to
his well-being appeared in the entry (written by her son) for 24 October
2008:
High drama with senior, Jack’s carer, and where is he, and why is he not
here and why is he there and so on. Very involved. Most personal. Senior
on phone all day ‘complaining’ she had not been told this or that and so
on. Jack was safe and being cared for, senior decided where he was
staying temporarily was too far to travel for a visit (Diary, 24.10.08).

1128 Joanna Bornat and Bill Bytheway

There were no details in the diary about the ‘high drama’ other than further
indications that Alice was unsettled by it all. Three weeks later, Alice wrote:
. . . I had a visit from my brother’s social worker to discuss his (Jack’s)
present and future care. We talked for 11 hours and resolved nothing
2
except to have a group meeting in December encompassing all aspects of
the care required by a partially paralysed cerebral palsy elderly 73 year
old . . . (Diary, 13.11.08).

The following month, she had a ‘long phone call’ with the review officer.
The problem centred upon Jack’s respite care; three weeks later, she
attended a care review meeting:
It was attended by two carers who rotate his care, representatives of the
Social Services and the Mental Health Trust. At 73 and unpredictable,
Jack’s suitability to be in a mixed children/adult setting was discussed. Liability for ‘accidents’ was the joint responsibility of the two agencies. Much
discussion took place! (Diary, 15.12.08)

At this time, Alice was eighty-six. She has concerns regarding risks to
herself. For example, she lives near the Pennines and is fearful of the
frost. The previous year, she had written ‘it only needs one frosty night
and I am housebound, as my front paths never thaw out once frozen
over’ (Diary, 08.12.07). She has had to balance responsibility for herself
and for her brother for most of her life. His vulnerability has put
demands on her that have not always been met by adequate service provision. Even now, late in their lives, changes in his care situation pose challenges for her. She has an absorbing responsibility for his welfare but no
longer an ability to take all the actions that she feels are necessary.

Living with risk
In addition to identifying all mentions of contact with social work or social
services, we also searched for evidence of perceived risk, both in the past
lives of the twelve seniors and in their current everyday lives. We were particularly interested in two types of risk: of losing a sense of independence
and of death following an accident or illness. One senior in particular provided detailed evidence of how older people can perceive such risks.
Alan Shaw is aged eighty-two and he and his wife, Beat, live near Colchester. They are both from Essex families and Alan has three siblings living in
the county. In 2006, both their children, Chris and Josie, were living in
Australia, and Alan and Beat had been thinking seriously about moving
there themselves. Josie and family, however, had returned to the UK
and, at the time of joining the The Oldest Generation project in March
2007, they were living in a village in Leicestershire, three hours’ drive
from Alan and Beat. Josie informed us that her parents were intending to
move to live near her and that she was actively looking for a bungalow
for them.

Living with Everyday Risk in Later Life 1129

Alan was interviewed on 1 October 2007 at Josie’s house. Early in the
interview, he confirmed that Josie was still looking for a bungalow. A
sign of tension was evident when he remarked ‘I’m here with my wife
because she likes to come up and see her grandchildren amongst other
things’.
At that point, he was asked about the village in Essex where they lived
and it became evident that he was anxious about the risks of moving
house and losing his sense of independence:
Alan: I’ve got lots of friends obviously at the golf club, we’re not a particularly social couple, we haven’t got what we call very close friends, not many
of them anyway, we’ve got one or two . . . but apart from that we’re very
family orientated. I’ve got three sisters and a brother all alive and we
meet fairly regular for, er, meals you know and chats that sort of thing
(Interview, 01.10.07).

Thus, his everyday social life was centred on the golf club and his siblings.
The interview continued:
I: Yes, so when you move up here that’ll be . . ..
Alan: We shall lose them . . ..
I: That’ll be a change . . ..
Alan: We shall lose them, that is if we ever find a bungalow to suit us both
which might be a problem. (laughter)

Even though this was considered a joke, it is clear that Alan sees the prospective move as one resulting in a sense of loss. Later in the interview,
when the pros and cons of moving to Leicestershire were discussed, Alan
was asked again how he felt about moving and he replied ‘It’s horrible’.
It is clear from the interview that Alan was particularly anxious about the
risks involved in moving house. In contrast, Beat, without the same involvement in social activities in Essex, was keen to move closer to their grandchildren. In making the case, she focused on the future and the prospect
that Alan would give up playing golf and be unable to drive them over to
Leicestershire.
Two days after the interview, they returned home and that was the day
Josie started her diary. Here is her first entry:
Before they went we spoke at length about their plans to move to Leicestershire. I hope it is what they want. To Dad it seems to symbolise
getting old þ dependent on others. Mum just wants to be near us. Must
get on with the search for bungalows for them (Diary, 03.10.07).

In January, Josie sent them details of various bungalows. Now, she wrote:
Mum rang to say they didn’t like the look of the bungalows I had sent them.
Mum finding it difficult to consider down-sizing. Still not convinced moving
is the best thing for them when they are both well. Discussed putting in a
stairlift as it is the stairs they struggle with. Both appalled at the suggestion!
Anyone would think they are old (Diary, 08.01.08).

1130 Joanna Bornat and Bill Bytheway

On 21 January, she noted that they had looked at another bungalow and she
was ‘not at all sure they really want to do it’. On 2 February, Josie received a
phone call from the estate agent in Essex saying there was a ‘full price offer’
for her parents’ house. Josie phoned them. They agreed to phone back.
When they did, they said they had decided not to move. Josie’s summary
was: ‘Dad has his golf so why put themselves through it.’ The following
day, she expressed her own feeling: ‘We would really like them closer but
would all miss the connection with Colchester if they did move.’ Subsequent
entries in her diary, however, indicate that although Alan was ‘enjoying his
golf’, problems remained over the stairs.
Regarding the risk of death, Alan described in his interview a number of
experiences that have alerted him to the risks of mortality. He had previously had meningitis and, after spending Christmas 2006 with Josie and
family, he had felt ‘terrible’ on the drive back to Essex. The following
day, Beat rang the doctor and by the time she arrived, Alan was unconscious. He was transferred to hospital:
Alan: I was out. I was in a coma for three days. . . . Chris came over from
Australia because they said I was . . ..
Beat: On the way out.
Alan: I was. It was possible that I would not make it. . . .

Beat had also had a near-death experience shortly after they had returned
from a visit to Australia. They were in the garden, washing their dog, when:
Alan: Beat suddenly stood up and said oh, I feel terrible and with that spark,
right out, collapsed, she was unconscious for at least an hour, hour and a
half, she didn’t come to until they’d got in the ambulance ready to take to
the hospital. They didn’t know what was wrong with her to start off with,
and then they said she could have had a brain haemorrhage, and to me a
brain haemorrhage meant that was very, very serious. And when she was
up in the hospital to have the, I knew the operation was on Saturday
morning I think it was, and we’d been, I’d been told that the you know
there was a five or seven per cent chance that she might not survive and
we were at home waiting to hear from the hospital and the phone rang. I
feared the worst but when somebody answered it, it was my brother-in-law
from Watford asking how she was and I don’t mind admitting I sat on the
stairs and cried.

Alan and Beat had had other intimations of mortality. When talking about
his generation, Alan described how he’s always going to funerals of
members of the golf club and how, recently, two of his three sisters had
been widowed within three days of each other. Five months after the interview, Alan’s third sister lost her husband, and Josie commented in her diary:
‘I cannot believe all three of Dad’s sisters have lost their husbands so close
together.’ Other seniors offered similar accounts of the demise of their generation. At the end of the interview, they were informed that the intention
was that they would be interviewed again in eighteen months’ time, and

Living with Everyday Risk in Later Life 1131

most recognised that there was a joke to be made of the possibility that they
may not be around to be interviewed.

Discussion
These accounts of the everyday, whether framed in the context of a life
history or a diary entry, uncover how the minimisation of risk is balanced
against a preference for independence and how a degree of equilibrium is
sought in relation to lifestyle preferences. In diaries such as those of
Adam Arthur, recorders have noted how plans are negotiated and
changes of direction achieved in ways that reduce some risks but raise
others. What can be taken from the life history interviews with seniors
such as Alice Watson is evidence of the different ways in which adversity
and exposure to risk have been handled earlier in life. We see risks, or
the exposure to risks, narrated over time, a biographical handling by survivors. From the life history or biographical accounts, we gain a sense of management and an achieved security. From the diaries, a more episodic and
responsive impression is obtained—a more active engagement in risk management, as strategies are debated or played out from week to week. Taken
together, the two complement each other, allowing for a more rounded
view of how the risks of late life are viewed and experienced.
These data provide insights into the complexity of power and attachment
within families. The contribution of the recorder also plays a part in selecting, presenting and commenting on events. So, for example, Josie patiently
reports on the unfolding debate about Alan and Beat’s decision to stay or
move. Nevertheless, her voice as concerned yet relieved daughter comes
through when the decision not to move is taken. Adam’s voice dominates
the diary keeping, yet his expressed concern for Marion reflects their
emotional and physical interdependence, both evidence of how they have
developed ways to protect themselves from adversity. Alice’s diarist, her
son, steps back and allows Alice to speak in first person on occasion.
Unlike Adam Arthur, he evidently is does not feel able to speak for his
mother when the intensity of her feelings for her brother’s welfare and
security arise. In itself, this provides diary readers with additional insights
into the impact of his uncle’s lifelong impairment on his mother’s continuing equanimity.
The two data sources, the interviews and the diaries, have proved to be
complementary. The interview data, with additional dialogue provided by
questions and interpolations from others, include evidence of the way in
which risk is narrated retrospectively in relation to life events: a biographical account. The diaries provide evidence of the conduct and negotiation of
decision taking, the to and fro of the processes of estimating what to do ‘for
the best’. The two framings each provide evidence of how risk is seen in a
temporal perspective by those encountered in the project: they are both

1132 Joanna Bornat and Bill Bytheway

produced at a point in time and concern past experiences, current concerns
and future prospects.

Conclusion
The perspective that is currently driving professional approaches to the
assessment of risk in later life emphasises prevention and protection as well
as responsibility and an approach to independence—personalisation—that
assumes a degree of reflexivity on the part of actual and potential users of services. It assumes a ‘surveillance of the social’, anticipating potential accidents
and difficulties (Pickard, 2009). However, as Wenger (1997) and others have
demonstrated, engagement with professional care managers is a comparatively rare, and possibly brief, experience for older people, largely limited
to those previously living in what have been deemed particularly risky circumstances and who are now receiving care in what are intended to be comparatively secure environments.
Our research has revealed how older people outwith the purview of social
work perceive and respond to risk. In their everyday lives, risk is evaluated
more as a range of actions than a programme of avoidance. We have uncovered evidence of many varied everyday responses and negotiations, both
past and present. What we conclude is that risk in late life should be
viewed as an ongoing process that older people have and continue to
manage in relation to different kinds of adversity and changed circumstances. In late life, we are faced with existential challenges that load
risks in ways that the state, with the help of social workers and other professionals, is seeking to anticipate and minimise through the tools of assessment and care management. Typically, engagement with professional help,
as we have suggested, is likely to be minimal and crisis-driven. In this, it is
far from the reflexive engagement of Beck (1992) and Giddens (1991).
Though the personalisation agenda might seem to offer a way forward to
more individualised and processually based resolutions, its rooting in
resource management and targeting of those measured as at risk are unlikely to provide the change in culture that is claimed (Bornat, 2006).
Nevertheless, it is evident that many older people encounter social work
through their association with others well before their own personal needs
necessitate an assessment. In this way, they become familiar with social
work incrementally and indirectly, playing their part in the collective
effort to reduce avoidable risks and generate a shared sense of security.
In this way, our data, as Sheldon (2009) points out, are an antidote to the
social isolation and danger that social work professionals are more likely
to encounter in working with their older clients, particularly when they
are responding to policies driving different interventions. As she suggests,
there may be ‘a tension between policy approaches designed to support
independence in later life and preventative strategies based on early

Living with Everyday Risk in Later Life 1133

intervention’ (Sheldon, 2009, p. 99). Hearing how people manage support
and independence may be a means to avoiding such tensions. Thus, we
hope that our analysis will be seen to provide a realistic and humanistic
account of how we live with risk in later life.

Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the support of the ESRC in funding this
research, which is part of the Timescapes programme (ESRC grant reference number: RES-347-25-0003).

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