ABSTRACT
The research described here had several objectives. An earlier study of middle-class friendships in later life had thrown up a number of questions. One concerned class and gender differences in the pattern and significance of intimate relationships in later life, another social processes in the elderly peer group, and, at a more general level, the experience of ageing among peers and in age-mixed settings. An extensive American literature exists on all these questions, but very little work has taken place in Britain on any of them. Some of the American literature and its possible application to British society has been summarized elsewhere (Jerrome 1982, 1985).
