Silver Sunday: Joanna Lumley on why we should celebrate the elderly

It’s hard to imagine her wielding a free bus pass, but Joanna Lumley stresses she is “technically an old person”. At 66, the Ab Fab star is a proud grandmother and eligible for state assistance. “In terms of years, I’m a pensioner,” she says, her voice brimming with energy. “Of course I haven’t retired, but the words ‘pensioner’ or ‘senior citizen’ apply to me. I have a senior rail card.” But, as you’d expect from someone who is in high demand as an actress and presenter and, recently, Olympic torchbearer, Lumley certainly doesn’t feel old, and scoffs at the suggestion that she worries about it.

“Nobody does! Do you? I’ve just come back from New York where I have been filming with Martin Scorsese [she has a role in The Wolf Of Wall Street] and I am about to go rattling off on this huge documentary in Turkey, India and Oman,” she says.

“I don’t know what being afraid of being old is. I think all of us fear losing our minds or suddenly not being able to go up the stairs. But you can’t sit around being afraid of things. You’ve just got to do what you do. And if you are very interested in things and full of enthusiasm and lucky enough to have a full life, I don’t know when you sit down and think, ‘Oh, but what if I get old?’”

So ageing may be far from her own personal concerns, but the subject of the elderly and their treatment in society is one she feels strongly about. The star is lending her support to Silver Sunday, being piloted in London before potentially becoming a national event, which aims to celebrate older people and will see councils laying on activities such as tea dances. Lumley’s own parents have died and she has no elderly relatives, but the cause is close to her heart.

“I’ve always adored older people,” she says. “I have older people as friends. Maybe this is to do with the fact I was brought up in the Far East, where older people were respected and venerated for their wisdom and their darling place in society.

“So, it does shock me slightly how people say, ‘Oh, they’re old’. It seems to me that oldness should be a badge of merit. I’ve been brought up to enjoy the company of old people and actually I do love it, because they remember things and can talk about things. In the theatre, I love when we play to matinee audiences, who are often pensioners. They are wonderful audiences because they have seen lots of plays before, they are very discerning and have read a lot.”

Silver Sunday also aims to combat loneliness. A recent survey revealed that up to a third of men aged 75 and over are lonely, and a fifth don’t leave their homes for days on end. Discussing the statistics, the alarm in Lumley’s voice is audible. “Isn’t that horrible? It’s absolutely miserable. Maybe they’re not physically strong enough to go outside,” she says. “But I think a lot of the time people are nervous of the outside world – they think their bag will be snatched or they’ll be pushed over in the street or mugged. I hate the idea that as well as getting old and infirm they’re adding fear to the list. It’s absolutely dreadful.”

She thinks the problem is particularly stark in the western world, where families are becoming more fragmented and the risk of isolation is high, and hopes the event will encourage people to be better neighbours. “The idea of living absolutely on your own sounds attractive sometimes, but as you get older it’s not attractive. Old people long to be able to be linked into something and to be useful,” she says. “They long to be able to make pies or peel potatoes, or set the table or help children with their homework. This idea that you lose your usefulness or importance in society seems to me crazy.

“As people get wiser and wiser and have seen more and more, and get kinder and more understanding, we shuffle them off! We push them into the background. It’s absolutely mad.” Of course, the issue of age discrimination is a perennial one, particularly for women in the media. Fiona Bruce recently admitted she dyes her hair to cover her greys when she reads the news, and former Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly, who won her ageism case against the BBC, made a formal complaint about alleged hostile treatment after returning to the corporation.

While Lumley understands there has always been “a bit of give and take” in the jobs market, she says she hasn’t experienced it in her own line of work.

“I haven’t got a job that can be taken by somebody else younger if I left it. In my kind of work, that’s not how it is. They are always going to cast for people playing aunts or grandmothers and they’ll use older people for that,” she says.

And she is bemused by the fuss over Bruce dyeing her hair while so many high-profile men happily sport silver locks. “Of course women dye their hair to look nice and wear lipstick and things like that, and men don’t because men are men and women are women. There’s literally nothing more to be said about it. The commercials on television are all about people dyeing their hair and having gorgeous hair which is bright red or pitch black or blonde, so I don’t understand it.” But she adds, wryly: “Maybe that’s because I was dipping my hair in ink when I was 14.”

Much is made of the former model’s elegant looks, which belie her years, and you’d imagine there are good causes galore keen to get the glamorous and eloquent star on board as a supporter. She advocates for a number of charities, and was feted for the extraordinary success of her campaign for the rights of Gurkhas to settle in Britain.

Her father, James, was a Gurkha officer, and in 2008 Joanna took up the cause of those Gurkhas who had served in the British Army before 1997 but were denied the right to settle in Britain (those who served after 1997 were entitled to stay).

In a high-profile campaign, Lumley buttonholed then Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Downing Street and then, famously, Home Office minister Phil Woolas at the BBC studios. Public support grew, and within weeks, it was announced that all Gurkha veterans who had served a minimum of four years in the British Army before 1997 would be allowed to settle in the UK. It was a stunning success for Lumley, who was subsequently hailed a ‘Daughter of Nepal’ when she next visited the Gurkhas’ homeland, and she has since set up a partnership with food company Sharwood’s that supports the Gurkha Welfare Trust. There were even calls for her to stand for Parliament, which she rejected. So how does she choose which cause to help? “I’ve just got lots, actually,” she laughs. “I just have lots and do what I can in the time that I have.”

She won’t be able to attend any Silver Sunday events in person this year as she’s jetting off to film a documentary about Noah’s Ark. But she adds: “Although I shall be in the Oman I shall be sending something loving to a lovely ancient person for Silver Sunday. “There’s always somebody old just around the corner. Maybe I’ll give something to an old person out in Oman instead.”

BOND, CORRIE, PURDEY...and ALWAYS ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS

Lumley was born in Kashmir, India, on 1 May, 1946. Her father was a major in the Gurkha Rifles, and she spent most of her early childhood in the Far East where her father was posted. Lumley was educated at St Mary’s Convent School in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, and afterwards attended the Lucie Clayton finishing school in London.

Lumley first came to fame as a model in the swinging 60s, notably for photographers Brian Duffy and her friend, the late Patrick Lichfield. Although she had no formal training, she began her acting career in 1969 with a small role in the film Some Girls Do and a part in the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as the English girl among Blofeld’s ‘Angels of Death’.

In 1973, Lumley had a memorable role in Coronation Street. She played headmaster’s daughter Elaine Perkins, and, in an eight-episode stint, turned down Ken Barlow’s offer of marriage. Lumley’s first major TV role, though, was as Purdey in The New Avengers (1976-1977), a revival of the secret agent series, The Avengers. Purdey propelled Lumley to instant fame and created one of the “must-have” hairstyles of the 1970s – the Purdey bob.

In 1979 she appeared in another TV series, Sapphire & Steel, with David McCallum, which was conceived as ITV’s answer to Doctor Who, while in the 1980s she had roles in a number of films, including Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), and Shirley Valentine (1989).

Other work includes starring as the elderly Delilah Stagg in the 2006 sitcom Jam & Jerusalem and as main character Davina Jackson in the TV drama Sensitive Skin.

But Lumley is best known for her portrayal of fashion director Patsy Stone, companion to Jennifer Saunders’ Edina Monsoon in the BBC comedy series Absolutely Fabulous (1992–1996, 2001–2004 and 2011–2012). Drunk and disgusting, Patsy remains a classic comedy character.