Dear LPG, 

I think that one of the things that worries so many people in this day and age is how they appear to other people.  I remember some six years ago, not long after I retired, realising just how lonely having to change so much about your daily routine can be.  Perhaps it is a by-product of spending years of your life in a very personal, yet impersonal work environment. 

 I think that I was the sort of workmate that kept myself to myself and although I joined in with all the chats with the ‘girls.  A lot of that chat was gossip and I worked out a long time ago that, if we talked about all the other girls it was really important not to give too much away about yourself so that you minimised the chats you were the focus of, especially if you weren’t around to hear them and defend yourself. 

I had lived alone for quite some time before I left the full-time world of work, but I spent most of my days off shopping, keeping the house clean and keeping up with all those family obligations; phoning, making sure that you got birthdays and other celebrations right and there were birthday and Christmas cards to organise to mention a few.  But for all those things, life becomes much lonelier when you are not compelled to get up and out every weekday morning.  

I have a neighbour who is a couple of years older than me and that I had spent the past ten or so years sort of acknowledging with a nod of the head or a quick ‘Hello’ when I left my house to hurry for the train, until I did not have to do that anymore.  I suppose that she noticed that the quick chats were happening when I put out the bin rather than when I was hurrying off to work and there began to be a bit more time to talk.  It is funny how when you don’t have to hurry quite so much, it is not long before you learn a little bit more about each other and, I think, that she noticed even before I did, that I was a bit lonely.  

First she invited me to go with her to an exercise class, it was not long before I joined a lunch club that she introduced me to, and we often go on those organised day coach trips to the coast or the country and now we quite often spend a lot of time entertaining a small group of friends.  Covid-19 did not get in the way either.  When we really could not get out we would swap bits and bobs that our children bought when shopping for us.  There were many phone calls where one would inform the other about what had been left on the doorstep.

We now phone each other nearly every day and I think that we have passed the ultimate test of real friendship.   We have both received and made calls to each other at ridiculous hours in the middle of the night just because one of us could not sleep, and we have swapped front door keys just in case.  Within the past year we have found another couple of neighbours who have joined our little group having retired with the same loneliness issues which only came to light because of a bit of extended summer street chat.  

It is not the easiest thing to do but, when I think of how lonely I could still be if my neighbour had not bothered to hear the audio ‘small print’ and notice those little ‘loneliness alarm calls’ during those extended chats, I dread to think what my life would be like now.  

After my experience I have to say that one of the really important duties of retired neighbours is to sometimes say a bit more than, ’Hello’ and really listen to what is said back to you…

GF, Crofton Park