Regarding a snippet in Goodtimes, here is my experience of being "too old".

  Aged 68, I interviewed for a part-time one-year post in a University Library—shelving books and helping generally.

  To work behind the stamping desk one needs a degree!

  The interview went well enough for my being given a swipe card to enter two other libraries so as to see which area I preferred. Being a retired nursing auxiliary I chose the medical library. Subsequently I received a letter telling me that I had been unsuccessful but could contact them as to the reasons.

  Answer? The two interviewers did want me to have the post but when they passed my details on to personnel—a representative should have been on the interview board but wasn't—they were informed that I was too old. (The young man who did get the job is unlikely to stay for the one year.)

  Age Concern have been given details of this so as to have more such evidence of ageism.

Eileen W Nightingale

February 2001