Medium – Book
About the Book – Ben Aitken (who like me is from the UK South Coast), decides that he can save rent money in London by going on six coach holidays across the UK, and one into Europe. These coach holidays are generally for four days, and are usually the province of pensioners. They include four nights in a posh hotel, three course dinners, nightly entertainment and day trips – often for around £100 – or they did, before the pandemic. Ben travels on these coach holidays, commenting on the OAPs that he travels with as he goes, and telling stories of the eccentric activities that they get up to when on holiday.
My Rating – 2.5/5
My Thoughts – Firstly, I should say that I really enjoy travel books and books about people’s experiences – hence picking up this book. It was one I had seen advertised on Amazon a lot due to my other preferences, so I decided to pick it up and have a read. It’s a book with a lot of good stuff. Ben Aitken is great at picking up on eavesdropped remarks, and then reporting them with humour. He does a brilliant job of describing the places that he does to. Some of the things that he comments on are super moving, like the people he meets who are on their first holidays after losing their spouses. The trip that he takes with his grandma is a highlight, and she is one of the most interesting and funny characters that we meet.
So why only 2.5 stars? Aitken talks throughout about how terrible ageism is – and I completely agree. I’ve hated the narrative throughout the pandemic, where some people (including people close to me) have written off the deaths of the elderly as if it hasn’t mattered that they have died, or it’s just ‘very sad’. But I think that Aitken almost goes the other way, and majors too much on the wisdom of the old and the silliness of the young. The young are seen as being under-educated and unthinking, the old as wise and insightful. In my eyes, it is too much of a black and white hypothesis – there is little room for the grey truth – that sometimes it doesn’t matter how long you have been on this earth, an older person can be foolish and selfish, and a younger person can be sage and giving, and vice versa.
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