ABSTRACT
This chapter wants to pay attention to just that characteristic, looking at how place-bound rural identity deriving from the earlier life course may be manifested in current life of older adults. The relationship between older people and their rural places is largely subjective, embodying accumulated memories and affirmation of self-identity. The idea of social insideness refers to social ties of the community, including values and behavioural norms as well as giving and receiving support. As research on rural ageing has highlighted, while the existence of social communities can facilitate community access and social support of older people, the same communities can also be exclusionary for others, especially those exhibiting difference and those not involved in the existing community networks. Autobiographical insideness among the Mill Village Boys was to a large extent created through the meaning that sports and, in particular, a major mill that used to structure life in the Mill Village had for them.
