Carers in touch
Great-great grandmother Gina Goulty has been married three times and has lived all over the world. She now enjoys life in sheltered accommodation and wants to encourage others not to be sentimental when it comes to moving house.
“It’s not bricks and mortar that matter, it’s your memories,” says Gina. “So many people leave moving too late then they feel their families are pushing them into moving somewhere they don’t want to live. It’s better to downsize when you can make your own choices.”
Gina, (87) who had seven children, has 17 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and five greatgreat-grandchildren was born in Berlin and was just 18 when she met her first husband, Harry, who was working with the British Army in the controlled section of the city after the war. Gina got a job as an interpreter, but admits now that at the time, she knew no English!
She married Harry in 1949 and they came back to England, where they went on to have seven children. Sadly, Harry died at the age of 45 in 1970 and Gina later married his brother, James, who died in 1980.
She married her third husband, George, in 1985 and, when he retired as an architect, they moved to a flat which could be their lifetime home – with care and support if they needed it.
Gina admits she thought she was too young at 70 for the move but when George died in 2006, she was glad she was already living in a flat she could manage.
“George was right to insist on that move,” says Gina. “He realised that later in life we probably wouldn’t be able to drive and we needed to be near a GP surgery and the library. After he died, I had friends to support me and the privacy of my own flat.
“I’ve lived through some tough times in my life,” she says. “Just before the end of the war my father was taken away by Russian soldiers. We never saw him again. My mother died unexpectedly when I was 19 and I was in hospital having my first child. When I was a teenager, I was held in extreme conditions in a Russian camp.
“All this has taught me to enjoy every minute of every day. I play cribbage, I play games on my iPad and keep up with my family on Facebook. It’s important to keep up with modern technology because that’s the way forward. I never get sentimental. I just enjoy life. I’m already planning my 90th birthday. Everyone needs something to look forward to.”