Pensioners giving alcohol to kids

A study by Age UK has revealed that grandparents are one of the biggest suppliers of alcohol to children. This appears to be as a result of the swinging sixties.

Many of today’s grandparents grew up during the 1960s, which was a time of excess and decadence. Their more relaxed attitude to alcohol has resulted in many being happy to allow under-age relatives to try a tipple.

Another reason may be that many pensioners drink to combat loneliness and they associate a drink with being more cheery; therefore, they do not think twice about passing on a gift of alcohol.

Gillian Peel from Age UK Darlington has said that the charity is in the process of developing a new campaign to help tackle this growing problem.

She said: “There’s a lot of evidence to suggest there is an issue with older people drinking. Experts think that will be exacerbated over time, as the 1960s generation have grown up with a culture of drinking and they’re drinking at consistently high levels. There’s a large group of people from the swinging sixties who are about 70 or so. The culture changed from the restrictions and rations of wartime to everyone enjoying a glass of wine.”

Between the 1950s and 1960s drinking became more entrenched in culture as more people drank to socialise. There was also a gender shift; prior to the 1960s most drinking was done in pubs by men, but the swinging sixties saw more women drinking in nightclubs and bars.

In one recent case a grandmother in Consett was fined after she gave alcohol to her grandchildren, who later committed anti-social behaviour while drunk.

It is hard to see how the alcohol awareness groups will successfully change the attitudes of the pensioners who have been drinking throughout their adult life.