Dear LPG,   



Statistics and big numbers were never my strong point, but I had a bit of a thought the other day and I even went to the internet to check on a few stats.  Did you know that in 2023 there were about 68.35 million people living in the UK and 19% of us were over 65 years old?   An NHS website I stumbled upon tells that ‘2 million people in England over the age of 75 live alone, and more than a million older people say they go over a month without speaking to a friend.’  

I suspect that those people do see their carers when they do their regular (but very brief) calls 3 or 4 times a day, but those figures make really depressing reading even for a mathematical ignoramus like me.  


It will be argued that many of them live at home and could opt to move into a care home but when you have no one else, your home can be the only thing that you have left that is really yours.  I know that I see mine as the one place where I can do what I like and keep all my important things, and having visited a few care homes has left me convinced that moving into one must feel like completely giving up on your identity. 


It occurred to me that each of the people that contribute to that statistic, are likely to not even have anyone apart from their professional carer, who is always in a rush, to wish them a happy birthday when the time comes.  While I have long since given up celebrating my own, the reason being that I am usually far too busy doing other things to remember, I have friends to help me by at least saying those words to each other when the time is right.  There is always one friend, if not more, to have a meal with or go out with.  And the one in our group who is passing yet another milestone will receive a present or two.   Even though we play it down as we get older, the smallest of presents or a card make so much difference. 


I suspect that some of the people I am talking about have long forgotten how to use a telephone and only have the television for company.  That has to be a really hard way to live.   


We often know someone who lives alone and cannot get out as much as they used to, either because it has become physically impossible for them or a temporary situation that forced them to have to stay in, such as the pandemic lockdown, stopped them for a while and they just never got back into the habit. 


The above is probably as far as such thinking goes for many of us because reading this might trigger a thought or two, but the younger pensioners among us have often reached the time of our lives when we will have the most choice when it comes to what we do with  such a day.  Even if we have the busiest life in the world, we are at the point in our lives where we can set our own targets, and when what we don’t get done on time doesn’t really affect anyone that much.  


I have three visits scheduled to such people each week and I find saying goodbye at the end of each one really hard because I know that each of the people I visit will be alone again when I leave.  There is something really special about sensing their appreciation when I take them something really insignificant, and on their birthdays it’s usually a fairly unexciting cupcake with a candle stuck in it accompanied by a really bad acapella-based rendition of the most frequently sung song in the western world.   I make sure that the cake is small and they only ever get half of it, while I have the other half, because both I, and two of those I visit, have diabetes, but the lighted candle makes all the difference.  


I feel the need to remind those who can, that in an attempt to help to reduce the statistics a little bit, we should try to schedule the time to make a regular visit to someone who is, for whatever reason, well and truly housebound.  Then they will have at least one friend who offers them an annual ‘Happy birthday’ greeting…  


By the way, if today is your birthday, I wish you a Happy One…  


WY, Nunhead. 

 

 

Just in case this is your birthday LPG offers you the following link by way of a little celebration…

 

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