Growing old is not a chronic condition. It happens to us all, and it doesn’t mean losing the right to feel, to choose or to be heard.

The issues that affect senior Australians and their children are rarely tackled in the public sphere from an insider’s perspective. In our business, we sit with older people all the time and there are some extraordinary stories to be told, yet the general public only gets to hear a fraction of them.

With Grey Matters, we’re out to change that.

Grey Matters gives a voice to senior Australians and people who have helped seniors journey through and navigate the challenges and triumphs of growing old.

It is a platform that gives older Australians the opportunity to share their stories and opinions about what it means to grow old with dignity, or with humour, or with gravity.

Because elder Australians aren’t treated particularly well, and we need to understand that they’re just a different age to the rest of us. Their stories are just as important as anyone else’s, and I think to learn from the history of what they bring makes them even more important.

We shouldn’t be treating people as frail, and disabled, and incompetent, and incapacitated just because they’re of a certain age. Many people who are of elder years are just as witty and switched on as the rest of us, and some of them are a damn sight more so.

We shouldn’t be treating people as frail, and disabled, and incompetent, and incapacitated just because they’re of a certain age.

The stories on Grey Matters will strike a chord with a lot of people, and I think our readers will have similar tales to tell. We want to hear about those stories. We want to share them with everybody else.

Use our postcard feature on the home page to share your experience with us and the Grey Matters community. If you want to read more about what other people have experienced, and what their stories are, subscribe and we’ll keep you in the loop.

If you have a story you want to contribute, then contact us through the website. We’re happy to talk to you about publishing it.

The vital thing is these stories need to be told.