Whoopee! I'm glad to see the first legal victory for us Northern Irish oldies under the new anti-ageist law brought in in 2006.An employment tribunal has concluded that 59 year old Terence McCoy was illegally turned down for a job at a Belfast timber firm.
The advert for two sales jobs sought people with "youthful enthusiasm" and at the interview he was asked age-related questions.
The tribunal decided that but for his age Mr McCoy would "more probably than not" have been selected.
Mr McCoy felt he had been "flung on the scrapheap" despite having considerable experience and knowledge of the timber trade.
Good for him taking a stand against prejudice and not just shrugging it off as "one of those things". Now the company concerned and other companies will think twice before trying the same trick.
Even among the most enlightened people, I think there's still a sneaking suspicion that the over sixties are better off mowing the lawn than doing a paid job and that only twenty somethings have the oomph and drive to make a business successful.
The bleary-eyed young man who plods through the day with a crashing hangover or the miniskirted blonde who spends two hours discussing her boy friends are somehow seen as more employable and their personal failings are conveniently overlooked.
In the age of airbrushed supermodels and botoxed starlets, there's still a lingering belief that anyone with wrinkles and a double chin is past it and best put out to grass. Hopefully a lot more Terence McCoys will challenge this nonsense.
PS: John Lowe, 88, from Witchford in Cambridgeshire, is to star in Prokofiev's ballet The Stone Flower in Ely. He started ballet lessons when he was 79 and says "I think it's a wonderful thing to do and I don't understand why more men don't do it. There's nothing effeminate about it - you have to be incredibly fit to dance."
