Joy of the age-gap friendship
It started as a charity call – now, a year later, they share a magical bond. SARAH RAINEY on how she found the . . .
Every Saturday morning, when we meet for a catch-up over a cup of tea and a plate full of chocolate digestives, passers-by are treated to hoots, cackles and gales of laughter drifting out of the windows of her second-floor flat.
Last week, she told me the story of an old housemate, whom she suspected of using her expensive moisturiser when she left it on a shelf in their shared bathroom.
‘I confronted her, but she denied it,’ Margaret said, her eyes sparkling gleefully. ‘So I decanted it into a different bottle, filled the old one with mayonnaise, and let her slather that all over her face instead!’
Margaret is the most wonderful friend. Aside from her wicked sense of humour, she’s smart, thoughtful, caring and the best listener I know.
She’s always letting me borrow things from her wardrobe, loves watching old re-runs of Downton Abbey and is a dab hand at making raspberry jelly — even if she does slug half a bottle of sherry in it.
But Margaret and I do not have what you might call a conventional friendship. For while I’ve recently turned 30, Margaret is 78, making her 48 years my senior. She’s not a relative, or even a neighbour; rather, we’re two strangers who were paired up last year by a befriending scheme run by the charity Age UK.
At first, Margaret and I shared nothing but a postcode. I remember the first time I visited her flat in South-east London, just around the corner from where I live.
Margaret, the charity had told me, had no friends or family. She’d been left housebound after an operation and was feeling vulnerable, isolated and in dire need of company.
From the moment I crossed the threshold, and she asked me, in her broad yorkshire brogue, to ‘make us a brew then sit down’, I knew I’d struck gold.
We chatted non- stop, finding shared interests: food, perfume, the royal Family, London’s parks, the British museum, our mutual hatred of the dentist, finding that elusive little black dress, colourful jewellery, a weakness for Irish men. The age gap melted away.
I skipped back the next week, and the one after that, eager to spend time with my new friend.
Margaret and I have led different lives. She was born in the Thirties and grew up in Goole, a sleepy town in east yorkshire that couldn’t be further from the bustling capital city in which our paths crossed.
She trained as a hairdresser and a beautician before moving to London to work, turning her hand to nursing, elderly care, answering phones, management consultancy and fitting alarms. She
married, then divorced, missed her chance to have children, lost touch with friends who moved away (or died), and ended up on her own.
In an age of selfies and social media, it’s hard for someone of my generation to imagine what it’s like to have no friends. On Facebook, my tally is 824. My iPhone constantly buzzes with WhatsApp messages, texts and calls from my social circle.
Margaret doesn’t have Facebook — or a mobile phone. her friend tally was 0.
When I agreed to visit, I can’t pretend I thought our friendship would be anything other than one-way. They told me Margaret needed help with shopping, organising her larder and going through her post.
In return, I supposed, I would get that warm glow that comes from doing a good deed. how wrong I was. Margaret may be nearly three times my age, but she is no different from the other close friends I have made over the years. If anything, our friendship is stronger, more enriching than any I’ve formed with women my own age.
Margaret has lived through so much; her wealth of experience is an invaluable source of comfort and courage. She’s helped me cope with work stresses, relationship problems, even given me fashion advice when I was in a dither about what to wear to a wedding.
When, on one of our recent visits, I opened up about a family crisis and ended up breaking down in tears, Margaret’s was the reassuring voice I needed to hear. She is always calm, practical and has never let me down. At Christmas, Margaret taught me how to stud cloves into oranges, to make fragrant pomanders which we hung in both our homes.
She’s shown me how to wrap presents using raffia, apply gold leaf to a picture frame and make the flakiest, butteriest pastry. AnD
me? All I do is turn up, make us a cup of tea — and occasionally do vaguely useful things like change a light bulb or look things up for her on my ‘swipey thingymajobby’ ( Margaretspeak for my iPhone).
‘ you make me feel young again,’ she tells me. She makes me feel happy.
There are two million other over-75s who live alone. More than a million are chronically lonely. On Christmas Day last year, Margaret didn’t get so much as a knock on her door from her neighbours, whom she could hear celebrating next door. On her birthday, she got two cards — one from a distant relative, the other from me.
She’s got a bad hip, has only one good foot, is losing her eyesight and has ice- cold hands because of a nerve condition that affects her circulation.
But she never complains. Instead, Margaret has taught me to look on the bright side of even the greyest situation. ‘If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry,’ she says. Together, we do both.
The only time Margaret and I argue is when she talks about a time when she’s not here. I can’t bear the thought of this strongwilled, witty, self- deprecating woman not being in my life.
every day with her in it is a better one. And I am proud to call her my friend.