ABSTRACT
If we are trying to describe a house to someone, it is much easier to do if we draw a sketch of the ground plan for them, so that they can visualise the size and relationship of the various rooms, the situation of the windows, doors and so on. We are not showing them the actual house, with all its concrete detail and its particular atmosphere, but we do make it more real than by just describing it in words. In the following pages I am similarly sketching a ground-plan, as it were, in discussing in general terms some of the more prevalent types of family situations in which older people may be involved.
