The best job I ever had was when I was with the British Red Cross. My duties involved visiting lonely and isolated people in the Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) area to try to reintegrate them into their local community, as well as to provide a short term befriending service. I was not unaware of the issues of loneliness and isolation but I was still shocked – yes, shocked is the right word – at how widespread it was. And it wasn’t just old people, either. Mainly old people, but not solely. My work only tinkered around the edges, but it was rewarding. I learned that many people did care, but government didn’t.
I’d always looked upon ‘The Countryside’ as being an idyllic place. All that lovely scenery, the peace and quiet and all the rest of it. But I reckoned without growing old. I reckoned without one partner dying and the other being left alone. Meeting people who had been bereaved, having lost their soulmate, was invariably sad and sometimes distressing. The retirement they had dreamed of, the trips and holidays they had planned, time to spend time together, all turned to dust. Worse still, no one was there to pick up the pieces. The government provided nothing and local authorities, starved of funding since 2010, had nothing to give. All that remained was volunteers and, if they were lucky, charities.
Old age often brings with it unwanted side effects. I worked with people who suffered from Parkinson’s, various cancers, Huntingdons, various dementias and most of them saw no one for days on end, apart from wonderful minimum wage carers, usually from Eastern Europe. Certainly, no one talked and listened to them like I did. Surprisingly, shockingly perhaps, they often had grown up children and grandchildren who seldom called, never mind visited, their loneliness supercharged by apathy from close family members. I was allocated six weekly sessions to visit people and help them to reacquaint them with their local areas and the people who lived there. It was never enough and at first I felt guilt at leaving them in the same position as I found them. But as long as I gave them everything I could, I was able to square the circle in my mind’s eye. Their situation was not of my making.
My loyal reader will know that my time with the British Red Cross ended at the hands of the bullying and abuse of third rate, tin-pot managers, but I am proud of what I did and I know I helped a lot of people. Three years on since I left, I still think about those people in BANES and wonder how they are. I suspect many are no longer with us and others will still be lonely. The BRC service, which was funded by LandRover UK, has long been wound up and I don’t know if anyone has taken up the slack. I doubt it.
The coronavirus will not have helped. My friends – and that’s what many of them became – will have been trapped in their little houses and flats throughout that period. In many villages, there were literally no facilities. Some relied on neighbours doing their shopping. Others relied on ready meals prepared by carers. I always tried to take people out, for walks, shopping, community events – anything to make them feel life was worthwhile because for many it was argued by them that it wasn’t. No one takes them out. No one is even allowed to visit them. They come to believe that no one cares about them. They may be right.
Charities like Age UK do an incredible job in the community, with a small army of volunteers, but they only scratch the surface. I can’t help thinking how much better it would be if charities were funded in order to provide a range of befriending services carried out by professionals who could work a far greater number of hours if they were rewarded for doing it. The voluntary sector can only do so much. Either way, a society that really cared about the tragedy that is loneliness and isolation would do far more about it, wouldn’t it? As things stand, it could scarcely do less.
Not that people can carry out befriending services at the moment because of the return of COVID-19 might see volunteers inadvertently killing their clients, but surely we can do better?
Many of us have joined community groups to ensure that people who live alone and/or are vulnerable know there is someone who can help them. This is better than nothing but in the grand scheme, only just.
I’ll definitely volunteer with a charity like Age UK when I no longer need to put bread on the table through work. It would be a small plaster on a gaping wound but I have seen how loneliness and isolation impacts on people and I struggle to see how we call ourselves a civilised society when little or nothing is done to address it, other than warm words.
