Dear LPG,

Every now and then I find myself over thinking and the thoughts start when my day starts and continue when I leave the house.  I find myself thinking ‘worst case scenario’ when meeting every situation. It is sad that I can go shopping and find myself alone although there are so many other people in the shop.  I can return having only said ‘thank you’ to the person at the checkout and that is no way to live.

The trouble is that if you live alone you can get out of the habit of talking to people even when there is an opportunity and not communicating much is a slippery slope to not talking at all. 

Recently I saw a campaign on the television which encourages us to talk.  The campaign seemed to focus on children suggesting that they don’t talk about what really matters because they are often children of parents, or children who spend far too much time interacting with technology which is no substitute for a face to face chat.

 For us elders it is often different.  I think that the telly is often the main technology that we have and it talks at you but doesn’t really give you an opportunity to talk back.  Perhaps the problem is that we can’t argue with ourselves because we are likely to only have the one point of view to offer.

So, while the campaign offers this advice to children where when the audio stopped in those adverts, people were supposed to turn around and talk to the person next to them, more often than not an older person will still have no one to talk to.

One answer has to be that we older less communicative ones need to get out of the house and, whenever an opportunity presents itself and wherever you find yourself, turn to someone, make that first move and, if you can think of nothing else, mention the weather.

I found a few pointers online….

TS, Erith

TS has found some of the adverts used in ITV’s ‘Get Britain talking’ campaign…

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And for those who really don’t know where to start, he also offers some basic tips…

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