Not Fade Away: Staying happy when you’re over 64! is a new book by resilience writer Alan Heeks, to be published on Tuesday 1st May 2018, offering guidance to the baby boomer generation for enjoying their vintage years and growing through the tough parts of getting older. All proceeds from the book will be donated to Action for Happiness.
Alan Heeks is a creative ageing expert and natural happiness pioneer who has been leading wellbeing and resilience groups for many years at the magical woodland centre he founded near Salisbury, Hazel Hill Wood. His second book was Out of the Woods: a guide to life for men beyond 50. Now 69, Alan is deeply engaged with the issues in this new book.
Alan Heeks says: “The mid-sixties and beyond are a landmark age: a good time to choose what you want from the years ahead and take stock of the story so far. This short, practical book offers simple maps to find your bearings and make sense of the sixties and seventies. It’s a time of big transition, potentially a time of new freedom. But it’s also a time for facing challenges, which is why navigating your way forward skilfully at this age is so important. The book will also be a helpful guide for those in their fifties, offering inspiration and helpful foresight for the road ahead.”
Not Fade Away also explores what we can learn from the spirit of the Sixties. With so many music and movie stars from the era still vibrant and performing at 70 plus – from Mick Jagger and Judi Dench to Terence Stamp and Judy Collins – what can we learn from their journey through the decades, and how the Sixties shaped them?
Sixties folk star, Julie Felix, who turns 80 this year, says: “I feel lucky to have been part of the Sixties. I feel lucky to still be singing what Bob Marley calls ‘these songs of freedom’. And in the autumn of my years, I’m glad I can reach out and find a song to sing. Growing old is a challenge and Alan’s book can make the journey less daunting and more fun.”
With chapter titles named after iconic Sixties songs – from Good Vibrations and All Along the Watchtower to My Generation and Sunshine of Your Love – Not Fade Away is arranged in three main sections. ‘Finding the Gifts’ helps you appreciate the good things in your life, add to them, and make the best of your resources. With advice on silver dating, friendships, family dynamics and different types of communities and groups, it also shares advice on finding more meaning and purpose and provides ideas for creating fresh adventures.
‘Digging the Challenges’ contains guidance and resources for dealing with difficulties such as ailing health, fear of growing older and grieving lost loved ones, and shares positive ways to meet your financial needs. And finally, ‘Fresh Maps’, complete with advice from a range of role models, provides insights for changing unhelpful patterns and for becoming a ‘wise elder’, and shares useful hints, forecasts and opportunities for the decade ahead.
Alan Heeks says: “One benefit of these uncertain times we live in is that patterns and precedents are breaking down, so we’re more free to suit ourselves. There are people starting families and big new projects in their seventies; there are people relishing a quieter, slower pace; and there are people facing death or major illness. Whatever you’re facing, believe that you have more choices, more resources and more support than you imagine. Trust that life is inviting you to find your way. I hope you’ll find Not Fade Away a useful resource in that process, shining a light on your best way forward.”
