Prince Charles outraged by attacks on elderly

Press, 10 March 1984, Page 7

Prince Charles outraged by attacks on elderly

NZPA-PA London Prince Charles has expressed his outrage at attacks on old people by the young — and at how today’s youth seem to despise the elderly. With the Princess of Wales sitting nearby, he told an audience of 700 at London’s Guildhall, “Increas-

ingly, young people seem to despise the old. Often they think nothing of beating them up outside or inside their homes, just for the pension books they have picked up from the Post Office. “Traditionally, the special relationship between young and old had seemed to be one way of squaring the circle of life. “Now it seems to me that that circle is increasingly disrupted. Old people find themselves in homes cared for by devoted people, but cut off completely from the

society of younger people.” Prince Charles said the recent case of a woman, aged 99, gagged by two youths was “no isolated incident, but one of countless hundreds that take place all the time. And yet what do we do about it, we who pride ourselves of being a civilised society?”

Prince Charles, who was wearing a skullcap at the Jewish Welfare Board’s 125th anniversary dinner, said much was to be learnt from the Jewish community, and also from the Asians, who had a tradition oi respect for their elders. “Our sense of balance, it seems to' me, has been greatly upset, and we badly need to discover the meaning of this supposedly oldfashioned value which recognises old age and accords it the respect it deserves.”