ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a number of features of narratives relevant to subsequent sections. It examines the way being busy and active to age well is discussed in research and policy, and in interview by participants. The chapter explores the way busy and active older – and other – identities are achieved through the telling of these ‘busy stories’. Oral stories, such as these busy stories, are often thought of as being tales set in the past, with a clear temporal structure, single teller and a clear point to them. In an influential article, Gail Jefferson showed how prospective tellers design their stories to be locally occasioned, displaying them as in some way triggered by, or related to, prior talk. One way of doing this is through a story preface, for example, ‘that reminds me, guess what’, followed by the story.
