Young & old can learn so much from each other
NEW GUIDES BADGE WILL EASE LONELINESS OF THE ELDERLY
The Guides have launched a new badge to help tackle loneliness among older people – and I could not be more thrilled.
A major obstacle to the happiness and welfare of older people is a lack of awareness. Not enough people know about the challenges older people face, and projects such as this bring the issue into the public consciousness.
While it is sad that it has come to this for society to actively tackle loneliness, it is also inevitable.
This is because we live in a very fragmented society, addicted to being busy at all times. We no longer have our extended families around us as a support network as we used to, and we don’t pop in to see our neighbours any more – we may not even know their names.
Yet there is this misconception that we always have to respect people’s privacy, that it is rude to initiate a conversation, or suggest popping round to someone’s house for a cup of tea. But it is always worth taking the risk.
And what my work at Silver Line has taught me is that it is always worth talking. One conversation can completely lift someone’s day.
It is especially important for young people, such as the Guides, to start that relationship with older people.
I was incredibly close to my grandmother, Emily, and got a huge amount out of our relationship. Young and old together can make a terrific partnership. They can learn a lot from each other, enjoy each other’s company and gain all sorts of new insights.
In this way, it is a very sensitive and important gesture by the Guides to launch this new badge.
Nowadays, people seem to communicate on the phone, on screens and on the internet, which actually means we are more cut off from each other than ever before.
To tackle this, more companies should be offering slower, more careful forms of service.
For example, in supermarkets everyone seems so busy trying to get through the checkout, but not everyone actually wants that.
We should have special services, with assisted buying, run by volunteers or retired employees, so that shopping becomes an enjoyable and sociable experience.
People could pop into the supermarket to meet a shopping assistant, who could help with reading labels and packing, have a chinwag and provide face-to-face contact. My grandmother would stop and have a conversation in every store when she went shopping. By making shopping a social event, you can transform your week.
But, unfortunately, you can go about your day-to-day business now without talking to anyone. Another idea is for GP surgeries to introduce chat rooms, where visitors can go to have a cup of tea and talk to someone.
Often when you visit your doctor, it’s just a 10-minute consultation and the GPs are all so busy that you worry about holding them up when there is a big queue of people behind you. But if you had volunteers who could set up the real chat rooms, and be trained to recognise if there are any other serious physical or mental problems and then fast-track people to their GP, this would be mutually beneficial to both the patients and the volunteers.
So we need to set up antiloneliness projects everywhere.
Where the Guides have shown the way, others should follow, and every major organisation in the UK should begin to question what it is doing to address the loneliness epidemic.
Because loneliness affects everyone – not just the old, but the young, too.
When my daughter Rebecca was raising her sons, she used to go through a whole day, going to the playground and going to the shops, without talking to anyone.
It has become a new phenomenon among the old and young because of the way we choose to live now – with that addiction to social media, phones, screens and computers. We think that constantly communicating online is bringing us closer together, but it is actually pulling us apart.
It is isolating older generations who are not as computer literate.
And this loneliness affects people both physically and mentally. My work at Silver Line has shown me that it can stop people from eating properly or from exercising, and can leave them totally isolated.
It is particularly bad for people with disabilities, who can often be completely cut off from society.
So I would say to the young people of today: pick up the phone to your grandparents, or pop round to your elderly neighbour’s house for a cup of tea and a chat.
You won’t regret it – you might just save their lives.
■ The Silver Line is a free, 24-hour, confidential helpline for older people. Call 0800 4 70 80 90.
I was incredibly close to my grandmother. I got a huge amount out of the relationship