Dear LPG,

I am not yet a pensioner but I want to tell a story, which yet again, comes with a moral.

I have an uncle who is now in his late-80s.   He worked hard all his life and has the relatively rare distinction of never having been married and never having had children but owning his home, and that being said, I have tried my best to be there for him.    It is said that there is always one family member that you get closest to and in our family he has become my focus.  

Our family is quite a large one and others visit but, over the past five years or so, I have visited him at least once a week, perhaps because geographically I have been the family member that lived closest to him.  About ten years ago it became obvious to me that he was not going to be able to continue to live alone.  He started to spend more time at home alone and some of the things we talked about lead me to believe that he was becoming somewhat depressed.  I also began to worry about the state of his home in spite of his insistence that he did not need a cleaner.

In the end, after a year of thought, soul searching and family discussions on the subject, he agreed with us. Reluctantly we helped him as he sold his house, and moved into a nearby sheltered accommodation, where there was a warden to check on him, neighbours with similar things going on in their lives and the opportunity for some communal activity. 

But it was then that he noticed something.  Many of his neighbours, who were living in exactly the same situation as him, did not have to pay anything in the way of rent or council tax while , because he found himself with a large amount of money in the bank, he was spending it to achieve the same living standards .  I often tried to encourage him to go on an adventure; perhaps a cruise or really big holiday but, always cautious, my uncle would not be persuaded.  I could not even get him to agree to a better Television or a few extravagances for his home.

After eight years of living in that way he became ill and, after a really long hospital stay, he needed much more care than the sheltered accommodation could offer.  His new living arrangements are really good, but as the person who helped with most of those arrangements, I have learned just how much a week it costs to live in that way. 

It occurs to me that if he had no money he would have been entitled to the same care as his peers and it really upsets me when I think about the frighteningly expensive cost of his present living arrangements.  

So I would advise anyone who finds themselves in a similar position to enjoy some of the money you have while you can and before the only thing it can do for you is to pay for things that would be paid for anyway if you could not afford them. 

NF, Brockley