An essay on growing old photographed and directed by Lord Snowdon.

When we are children we hail every birthday as a milestone on the road to freedom and independence. Then somewhere around the mid-twenties we feel the first twinges of doubt and soon we find ourselves hesitating before we tell everyone that we have notched up another year.
Old age is something to which few people look forward with enthusiasm; some try hard to pretend that it won't really happen, some have a deep fear of it, most of us view it with slightly uneasy resignation.
This film is an attempt to capture something of what it feels like to be old in a society which for the most part is youth-oriented. It looks at the lengths to which people will go in order to delay the effects of the advancing years; and it tries to learn how different people adjust to being old.
There are contributions from Cecil Beaton, Noel Coward, Baroness Asquith, Leopold Stokowski, Field-Marshal Montgomery, Dame Barbara Hepworth, Sir Compton Mackenzie, Admiral Sir Alexander Ramsay and Lady Patricia Ramsay.
Written and narrated by Derek Hart.
A CBS News film