Fading Voices

Available for over a year

The BBC World Service Assignment programme comes from a British seaside town, on the north Welsh coast popular with retirees. Nina Robinson hears from the Trelawnyd male voice choir who have been singing together in the Village Hall as part of a tradition stretching back to the 1930's. But with some members now well into their retirement years, she finds that they are reluctantly facing the prospect of having to give up the choir. Sounds of celebration reverberate in the music of the choir, but the voices mask undertones of loss, grief and isolation. Amid headlines of abuse in care homes and the spiralling costs of future care, the spirit of old people may sometimes be overlooked. This programme explores what it means to be elderly in the UK.