The UN’s International Day for Older Persons (1st October) is an awareness day that gains more and more importance every year because of the nature of the ageing society we live in. The number of people aged 60 and over in the world has more than doubled in the last 30 years and estimations are that by 2080 there will be more people aged over 65 than under 18.
This brings many challenges for us as a society, and one of the most serious of those is loneliness. A report from Age UK last year showed that almost 1 million older people in the UK are often lonely, with 270,000 of them usually going a week without speaking to a friend or family member.
This was all in my mind in April when I decided to volunteer as a Telephone Friend with Age UK, using the five days of volunteering time that we receive at Social each year.
I didn’t have grandparents growing up, so this opportunity felt like a meaningful way to connect with an older person, as well as helping me build my own social skills and hopefully learn from talking to someone from another generation with different perspectives.
Age UK’s Telephone Friendship Service pairs volunteers with people over 50 to have regular 30 minute conversations once a week to help combat loneliness. I was paired with an older gentleman who was dealing with grief and depression following the loss of his wife after a lifetime together.
Initially, and understandably, he was emotionally guarded in our conversations, which wasn’t what I had been expecting when I first signed up. I thought I’d be having upbeat chats about their amazing life experiences. However, I quickly realised that I needed this reminder of the reality of life for so many older people.
He shared with me early on that his wife had died a few years ago and said that he didn’t ever want to talk about that. However, as our conversations have gone on, he’s opened up about his wife and their life together. Now we talk about her in almost every conversation we have.
A big lesson I’ve learned is that people don’t always want reassurance or to be cheered up when they are sharing their negative emotions, sometimes they just want to be heard. Sometimes lonely people just need someone to talk to, so they can share their feelings without needing to hear anything inspirational back.
I struggled at first because the conversations weren’t flowing and it took time to be comfortable with the silences between us, which felt scary at first, but the silences have become more natural as our relationship has developed.
Having these weekly phone calls is something I always look forward to and I hope it’s something he looks forward to as well, because I know he can otherwise go a long time without speaking to anyone else. That’s why I make sure he has my full attention on our calls and I’m grateful to Social for giving me the time and space to commit to this within my working week.
This experience has not only impacted on me as a person, but also on my day-to-day work. It has come alongside design work I’ve been doing with our client Housing21, which has seen me visit one of their retirement villages for a photoshoot.
Speaking to some of the older people there made me conscious of how to communicate with them so that they felt comfortable, slowing down and making sure I was being clear in what I was saying. I also found that I really appreciated their openness and honesty, especially when they were talking about people they’d lost.
Retirement villages like the ones operated by Housing21 have such an important role to play in combating the loneliness felt by so many older people, because they encourage social interaction, provide opportunities for fulfilling and busy lifestyles with a balance of independence and community spirit. Visiting certainly made me realise I would want to live somewhere similar when I reach that age.
But not everyone has the option to move into a retirement community, especially if they are amongst the 1.9 million pensioners living in poverty. And if they don’t have friends or family members, the responsibility to look after them falls on us as a society and as individuals.
You can find out more about becoming an Age UK Telephone Friend here: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/telephone-friend/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21117577608&gbraid=0AAAAADyp8JK4WFIk6CNkiPIR19wLjkQFN&gclid=Cj0KCQjw267GBhCSARIsAOjVJ4GADC01-KWDOh5-zR86TO2DdjcErAGk217HlXxLCZ-QSJgsqOEf4uwaAoopEALw_wcB
By Yaéms Collins, Designer
