Welcome to the very first edition of Frank & Earnest – part blog, part news website, part online village square, delivered direct to you via a weekly newsletter – featuring news, ideas, opinions and general conversation starters about the things in life that matter to most people, but especially to older Australians.
We’d like to engage with you in conversations much like the kinds of exchanges between friends, colleagues, family, neighbours or any of the other people we connect with in our lives. Some conversations will be deadly serious, some deeply passionate and others light and playful, depending on the topic. We’ll range from international issues to local politics, the environment, health, housing, money or manners. Some conversations will be about topics and challenges facing us as we age or that are of greater interest to us at the later stages of life. Others are just about interesting films, food and drink, music, gadgets, websites, whimsy and more, but coming from a mature person’s perspective.
One of the reasons we chose the name, Frank and Earnest, is because there are two real people behind this new adventure and it happens that these names loosely reflect our different personalities. So, loosely speaking, Chris is Frank. He likes to be frank, to call a spade a spade. Keryn is Earnest and it’s fair to say she is more considered and earnest by nature.
So, on the one hand, our conversations promise to face topics head on and not be afraid to ask difficult questions or present strong views. That’s the Frank piece.
At the same time, we’re not interested in ill-considered opinions and bluster. We want to look at topics from different angles, verify evidence where we can, be thoughtful, thorough and fair. That’s the Earnest piece.
Of course that’s not the end of it. Both of us love a laugh too. But broadly speaking, the name works for us because we are the real people behind all the conversations we choose to share – ‘curators’ if you like – and we have our own distinctive voice and personality that we hope our readers will enjoy engaging with and getting to know.
We want to create a place for honest and intelligent two way conversations about all the topics that make people who they are at every age including in our 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
Who are Keryn and Chris?
Keryn Curtis is a 1964 baby who turned 50 last year. Chris Baynes has 12 years on Keryn. Born in 1952, he recently celebrated his 63rd birthday. Both of us have had a few different careers (you can read a bit about that on the website here) but one of the things we have in common is an understanding and passion for positive ageing from our respective decades working in the broad ‘field of ageing’.
In the last decade Chris has concentrated on the retirement village and aged care sector. He publishes a directory of villages, runs conferences and educational events and writes a weekly newsletter for retirement living sector professionals.
Keryn was the founding editor of Australian Ageing Agenda, a magazine and news website on ageing issues including aged care, ageing policy, research and ageing related topics for professionals, academics and advocates in the ageing and aged care sector.
What we agree we have learned is that growing older can and should be a rich and rewarding experience and it deserves our positive attention and respect. This is not about getting really good at avoiding ‘looking old’ or ‘acting young’. That’s a rejection of ageing and we’re not interested in that.
What we are interested in is acknowledging that the different decades of our lives offer up different stages, present different opportunities, provide different experiences and create different expectations for different people. But different isn’t the same as better or worse. In our own minds, we have good and not so good years, good and less good decades, for all sorts of different reasons. And one person’s idea of good and bad can be quite different to another person’s.
We really want to avoid slipping into clichés and tired old platitudes about wisdom and respect and only being as old as you feel. And we don’t want to be apologists for being who we are. What we want to do is create a place for honest and intelligent two way conversations about all the topics that make people who they are at every age including in our 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. ‘Older people’ in our book are nothing other than the people they always were, just further along life’s journey.
We hope you will join us and help us to understand, investigate, challenge, celebrate and savour all our years, from beginning to end.
