Virus taught us to respect the elderly

TORY politicians could not have predicted the 2020 enforced isolation for several months of elderly people because of a pandemic.

But the impact of a virus did not invent the loneliness of age. A fading mental energy has always inflicted itself upon a large proportion of old people, plus the physical worries of poverty, reduced circumstances and the inability to prevent further decline, and, worst of all, the inner psychological fears of approaching dementia.

Money makes a huge difference to the circumstances, but old age separates many from any deep emotional communion, even from those they love. All this is why a Labour government cancelled the price of a television licence for all old people, determined to use TV as a truly valuable stimulation to all lonely people, to expand the scope of their thinking and the activity of their brains.

Now, the advent of the virus has taught the stupidest of us the huge damage of isolation in old age, however necessary for all of us, to the brains and minds of our own parents. All of a sudden, in this extreme situation, citizens talk of increased mental ill-heath.

It may well be that Tory politicians will never understand that reimposing the cost of the TV licence, could not be a clever way to save money, since money is the limit of their thoughts or concern. But ordinary people, who love their aged parents, should be ashamed if they never worked this out for themselves, before the virus came to teach them.

Neville Westerman

Brynna