Homing in on family values
IT’S FUNNY the tricks life plays on us. If you’re lucky enough to have siblings the chances are you spent as many hours arguing as you did playing when you were growing up and wouldn’t be seen dead together from secondary school age. Yet sibling relationships are usually the most long-lasting of anybody’s life, including parents and partners, and the chances are they’re the ones who will stand by you to the end.
After all, blood is thicker than water.
It’s this life-long familiarity that partly explains the growing trend for siblings to live in the same retirement communities – sometimes even in the same apartment – according to specialist developers McCarthy Stone.
Among them is Michael Lambert, 90, and his 85-year-old sister Jenny Hurford, who live opposite each other at McCarthy Stone’s Ridgeway Court apartments in Heathfield, East Sussex.
“Mick and I have always been very close,” says Jenny, the youngest of six. “Having him just across the hall from me has made a world of difference, especially after I lost my husband only recently.”
Jenny lived with her late husband John for 63 years and admits that after he died she was “at sixes and sevens”.
“I could no longer manage the upkeep of the bungalow and I felt so alone.That’s when Mick told me there was a vacant flat opposite him at Ridgeway Court, so we chatted it over with my daughter who thought it was a wonderful idea.
“It would mean I’d have some company – and some lovely company at that.”
Mick agrees that they have always had a special bond: “There’s never been any secrets between us, we tell each other everything. If ever Jen has any issues, she knows she can come to me.We’re as close now as we were when we were children. In fact, we often both say we still feel like we’re in our youth.”
Jenny has made other friends, too, since her move from Seaford on the East Sussex coast to Heathfield, on the edge of the South Downs.
“It’s great that there are so many people you can talk to at the development, not to mention there’s always some kind of event or activity happening.”
Mick adds: “There are regular quiz nights as well as fish and chip lunches, which I help to organise, and if you have any hobbies there’s plenty of opportunity to pursue them.
“There’s never a dull moment, especially with Jen around. For Christmas she joined my wife, Lynda, and I for dinner and together we felt right at home.”
RIDGEWAY Court is one of McCarthy Stone’s purpose-built Retirement Living apartments for over-60s, which have energy-efficient one and two-bedroom flats, a shared lounge for activities and communal gardens.
McCarthy Stone’s Retirement Living PLUS apartments are for over-70s and often in retirement villages with extra facilities such as a subsidised restaurant, fitness centre, salon and personal care packages.
Details of new developments can be found at mccarthyandstone.co.uk, where you can also contact its resales team about secondhand homes.