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Is anyone talking about anything else but Andy Burnham? We are. We’re talking about the brilliant 92 year old, Frank Bowling. And now we’ve found out what his guiltiest pleasure is.

1. Frank Bowling in all his glory. Interview and photo for the Guardian.

‘Born in British Guiana (now Guyana), Frank Bowling, 92, moved to the UK aged 19 and did national service in the RAF. In 1962, he graduated from the Royal College of Art with the silver medal for painting. He moved to New York in 1966, where he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, and exhibited his “map paintings” at the Whitney Museum in 1971. In 2005, he became the first black artist to be elected a Royal Academician, and Tate Britain staged a retrospective in 2019. His exhibition, Seeking the Sublime, is at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, until January 2027. He lives in London with his wife.

When were you happiest?
Recently, as people began to understand what I am trying to do in my painting.

What is your greatest fear?
Being poor.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
The boozing. I started on rum as a child.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Trying to exercise authority over one.

What was your most embarrassing moment?
In the 1950s I went to the Chelsea Arts Club’s New Year’s Eve ball at the Royal Albert Hall dressed as a Christmas pudding, with swimming trunks under my costume and holly in my hair.

Describe yourself in three words
Needing order always.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I haven’t kept up with fashion. I think I dress well – corduroy trousers, colourful shirts and a hat – but it’s all traditional stuff. I envy my grandson’s bright yellow suit and colourful sneakers.

Would you choose fame or anonymity?
Fame. It is hard to be clothes-conscious and anonymous.

What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
A fellow artist called me a flaneur!

If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
Billy Eckstine singing Tenderly.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A detective. Or a writer. Or a poet.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Lagavulin 16-year-old whisky. My doctor says I shouldn’t.

What do you owe your parents?
My mother paid my first term’s fees at art school. I inherited her ambition.

What did you dream about last night?
Making a bigger picture. I see my paintings as competitive, so when Into the Blue [13 metres wide] was installed in a church, I immediately saw how I could make it bigger: by adding wings.

Which words do you most overuse?
The edge! I’m very concerned about the edges of my work and sometimes I can’t get my assistants to understand.

What has been your closest brush with the law?
My father. He was a policeman who believed in corporal punishment.

What keeps you awake at night?
My work. What shape will it take?

How would you like to be remembered?
As a nice old man.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Keep working, improving your step.

What happens when we die?
I hope I’ll find my mother and father in heaven. Only my father would probably say, “You can’t come and live here, boy!”

2. The fabulous tea dance is back in Spitalfields every Wednesday 12 30 until 2 30pm. What a wonderful way to spend time.

3. 

   And this was a piece on the BBC website about whether it’s worth having therapy when you’re older. We thought it was. By

   ‘We assume therapy belongs to youth, yet older people may be particularly likely to benefit from psychological support.

   Maurizio is 70. He recently began therapy in the hope of better understanding a physical pain he had carried since childhood. He has suffered migraines since the age of seven and wanted to explore what might lie behind them.

   Over the years he had consulted different doctors and sought multiple opinions – therapy was another attempt to trace the origins of the problem. But he continued even after realising he might never find a single cause. “The process itself became something meaningful, a space for introspection that helped me understand my life more clearly,” Mauizio says. (We have omitted the surnames of the therapy clients quoted within this piece to preserve their privacy.)

   Antonio, 73, and his wife Gigliola, 68, turned to therapy hoping to save their relationship after years marked by disappointments and unspoken tensions. “After some time, I realised I felt lighter, more open,” Antonio says.

   “Looking within ourselves and bringing out what we could never say before perhaps helped us,” Gigliola adds.

   Their stories challenge a common assumption: that therapy is only for the young. And a growing body of evidence suggests that many older people could benefit from the same kind of help.

   Therapy in later life

   The potential for therapy to treat mental illness and enhance our overall wellbeing is now well-established, yet it is relatively rare for older people to access these services.

   According to the World Health Organization, around 14% of people over 70 live with a mental health disorder, most commonly anxiety and depression, and 17% of all suicides occur in people of in this age range. A study published in 2024, however, found that only around 4% of US adults aged 65 and over received psychological therapy, compared with 12% of those aged 18-24 and 8% among those aged 35-64.

   This is despite there being no evidence that therapy is any less effective or useful as we get older, according to Pim Cuijpers, professor of clinical psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. “Therapies work across the whole adult age,” he says.

   Cuijpers recently published a review on psychotherapy for depression across different age groups. “What surprised me is that there is quite a lot of research in older people who are above 75 and we didn’t find any indication that psychotherapies differ in that age group either,” he says.

   

   Older people may find the strongest benefits in group therapies (Credit: Getty Images)

   Older people may find that therapy helps to target some of the specific concerns that come with ageing, including social isolation and chronic illness, with widespread benefits. Many report improvements in overall wellbeing, renewed motivation and increased social participation. In this way therapy can function as a bridge: helping older adults reconnect with themselves and the wider world. The strongest responses, according to a 2025 review, may be found in group-based interventions, which makes sense, since they offer a structured means of relating with others.

   And despite lower levels of initial access, completion rates among older participants can reach up to 54%, often surpassing those of younger adults. This demonstrates that older patients are frequently highly committed to therapy and capable of sustaining the work required for meaningful change.

   “We don’t know the reasons but we could imagine that when older adults are willing to seek help, they are also more motivated to do that,” says Cuijpers.

   Distress may be seen as a natural response to ageing or physical decline, rather than as a mental health condition that warrants treatment

   Barriers to care

   Financial difficulties help explain part of the gap in older people beginning therapy in the first place: their health insurance may not cover therapy, and they may not be able to afford to pay for it independently.

   A world of therapy options

   Therapy comes in many different forms and can be tailored to different needs. A few that may be worth considering trying are:

   • Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thought patterns.
   • Psychodynamic therapy has an emphasis on how past experiences shape present emotions and behaviours.
   • Family therapy is for those who want to work beyond an individual focus (such as in Antonio and Gigliola’s case) and looks at relationships and dynamics within the family as a whole.
   • Group therapy creates opportunities to share experiences with people facing similar medical diagnoses and to feel more understood and less alone.

   But another barrier can arise within the healthcare system itself. The journey into therapy often depends on a referral from a primary care physician, yet some research suggests that older adults are referred to psychological treatments less frequently, even when they present with symptoms of anxiety or depression. Their distress may be seen as a natural response to ageing or physical decline, rather than as a mental health condition that warrants treatment.

   Part of this prejudice comes from Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, who argued that therapy stopped working after 40 or 50 years, says Rossana De Beni, professor and senior researcher in experimental psychology at the University of Padua, Italy. In On Psychotherapy (1905), a brief technical paper on the practice of psychoanalysis, Freud noted that above a certain age “the elasticity of the mental processes, on which the treatment depends, is as a rule lacking”.

   

   Therapy can help clients to find a new lease of life through activities like travel (Credit: Getty Images)

   But that is “absolutely not true”, says De Beni. In fact, “studies show the opposite”.

   Clinicians need to see the older person for who they truly are, De Beni points out, not simply as “an old person”, but as a multi-faceted individual. Unfortunately, our ageist prejudices are often “deeply entrenched”, she says.

   Some of the ageism may be internalised by the potential patients themselves. Beliefs such as the idea that mental health problems are simply a normal part of ageing are among the most frequently cited obstacles to accessing care. This is especially problematic, since ageism can itself predispose someone to greater anxiety and depression.

   More like this:
   • Nine tips to help you cope during turbulent times
   • How your personality changes as you age
   • How defying ageism can help you to live longer

   The simple truth is that positive transformation is possible across the lifespan. “Ageing, right to the very end, is a stage of life marked by change,” De Beni says. “People become more fully themselves in a process of continuous transformation, learning and flexibility that never truly ends.”

   

   Old age can be a period of continuous transformation and learning (Credit: Getty Images)

   Maurizio certainly identifies with this sentiment. “There are three moments when therapy helped me: in dealing with my marital separation, in working through certain conflicts with my children, and in navigating the transition from active work to a pre-retirement phase, where I had to find new ways to socialise,” Maurizio says. “I never thought it could be too late for anything.”

   He hopes that he has set an example for others to follow. “I think it may have planted a small seed: not today, not tomorrow, but perhaps the day after, they will bring it out and water it,” he says.

   --

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5. This is Dead Good who are death educators and here they talk about a woman whose children did not want her to talk about her funeral. Dead Good do some great educational work. What do you do if your families/or people close to you don’t want to talk about your funeral and you do?

   ‘One of the unexpected things about running a DEAD GOOD stall is that complete strangers occasionally walk up and tell us exactly what they want to happen after they die.

   Sometimes they’ve never said it out loud before. Often, sadly, their families don’t want to or aren’t ready to hear it.

   This truly excellent woman knew exactly what she wanted. Three specific funeral choices that told us an enormous amount about her life and values.

   No expensive ‘upgrades’ required here!

   Just a few clear details that say: this is who I am, this is what matters most and this is how I want to be remembered.

   We encouraged her to write down her wishes, keep them somewhere safe with her other important documents and let her family know that she’s done this.

   What might these specific details look like at your funeral?

   And if you want to start thinking about your own funeral ideas, you can order our MY FAREWELL zine kit from our webshop (riso-printed hard copies and downloadable PDFs available) to start the ball rolling. ‘

   

   6. Yes, Womad is back this year and we are delighted. Are any of you coming to Womad this year? Am really looking forward to it because there was no WOMAD Festival 2026 • Neston Park last year. And it's moved to a new venue. Can't wait. My grandson is coming.