To realize that I was born in the last century makes me feel positively ancient, DJ Carswell begins. My grandmother never visited London. My father never flew in an aeroplane, and middle age for him was his thirties, since he died before he could enjoy retirement.

This generation, by contrast, has seen some of the most remarkable advances in science, technology and social life, and it is no longer unusual to live long enough to reconsider everything. The accounts gathered here are of people who came to faith after fifty, and the book is written for readers in the same stretch of life.