'Why I want to move into a 'commune' with my friends

When I was young, I remember our households being full of all generations: great aunts and grandmothers, someone else’s step-grandfather, cousins of cousins, a maiden aunt, children whose parents were abroad ( as mine sometimes were). We bought them presents at Christmas, and wrote thank you letters and postcards, and kept in touch with them as we in turn grew up and left home.

It happens less and less these days. Shut away in their care homes or halfway up a block of flats, our elderly are frequently isolated and forgotten. Cut off both emotionally and physically, they naturally become lonely. Humans are pack animals: social connections are crucial to our wellbeing and survival. But according to ONS figures, more than half of all people aged 75 and over live alone, while Age UK reports that two-fifths of older people say the television is their main company. Behind statistics like this lie millions of lives blighted by loneliness. 

This is why, five years ago, Silver Sunday was launched. This year’s incarnation takes place today: a day of free events and activities for older people across the country, and a day for everyone else to show they are thinking about them. 

My own involvement in this started when I attended the second ever Silver Sunday tea dance a few years ago. (I’ve since decided, incidentally, that the tea dance is my all-time favourite type of entertainment.) Held by Westminster City Council, it welcomed old people from all over the borough, bringing them together to dance, eat cake and drink tea. No one was alone that day: they arrived in buses together, danced together and took tea together. 

Elsewhere, Silver Sunday takes different forms. This year’s activities include a boat trip along the Bristol harbourside, a walking football tournament in Worcester, film screenings in London and many others besides. 

Organisers describe it as “a day in the national calendar when we ask the nation to pause and think about older people and celebrate their contribution to society”.

The burgeoning of the campaign has coincided with an increased awareness of the plight of the elderly. Another such initiative, the Campaign to End Loneliness, was launched a year before Silver Sunday, in 2011, while more recently Age UK launched its own version, No One Should Have No One. And yet the problem persists.

My friends and I have often spoken of a plan: rather than reach the stage where we’re old and alone, we’d prefer to live together; to buy a big house, install a housekeeper to look after us, and enjoy our twilight years in good company. “Let’s not get old alone,” we have said. 

But so many people do. And as modern life has become ever more digitised, the loneliness of the elderly has intensified. The advance of technology makes many of us feel more connected, but for those who don’t use it, it’s a different story. Look around a Tube carriage these days and everyone is staring at their screens, not looking at each other and saying “That’s a lovely coat,” or “Is that your dog?” The little snippets of everyday chit-chat we once shared with strangers are at risk of dying out.

I’m a great believer in smiling at people and saying “Good morning,” “How are you?” and “Isn’t it a lovely day?”

I count myself as an old person, and although I have mastered the art of email, I know those who haven’t. A widowed friend of mine lives on her own and I can only get in touch with her by phoning or writing. I can’t send her emails at 11pm saying: “Did you watch Victoria tonight?” She cannot receive the  emails she might otherwise be able to wake up to in the morning that would tell her that someone, somewhere was thinking of her. She doesn’t know how to use technology, and worries that if she tried to learn, she would have no one to turn to for help if she came unstuck. 

She’s by no means the only member of her generation to feel this way, and it can be detrimental to participation in modern life. If you want to do banking now, you’re encouraged to do it online, where in the past it seemed so easy just to write a letter to your bank manager. What do grannies do when they want to send a birthday cheque to their grandson in a world where everything is online?

Making bookings tends to happen largely on the internet now, too. Those who still wish to carry out their business by telephone will frequently be left hanging on for so long they’ll start worrying about their phone bill rocketing. I can remember the days when calls made before 6pm were frowned on as wild and unnecessary extravagance, and if I recall those days of counting the pennies, how much more can those even older than me.

In the supermarkets, meanwhile, our cashiers are disappearing and being replaced by self-service checkouts, the use of which can deprive old people of the one opportunity for human interaction they might have that day. ( I don’t like use the self-checkouts, preferring instead to queue at the till for the pure joy of the human contact it involves.) 

Our public debate is full of “young people’s” issues: GCSE grades, A level results, universities. This was, of course, not always the case. When I was young, no newspapers wrung their hands endlessly over our exam grades: we were still schoolchildren. Somehow the present passion for youth has stolen today’s headlines. 

So where do old people fit into this society? Those who are grandparents have their designated part to play, but what about those who are not? These are often the people who don’t know how to make contact with others and feel vulnerable and lonely. This, in turn, makes them less likely to go out and make friends. 

Those living in tower blocks can be especially cut off. The friendly neighbour of yesterday, who could see over the garden fence that you hadn’t hung out your washing one day, might have knocked on the door to check all was ok. This kind of gesture once helped bond a collection of neighbours into a community.  In the modern era, people may live in the same locality but they don’t necessarily feel there’s a community there, that they belong, that their input and opinions are valued.

As we move from our 20s to our 30s and 40s, we have less time to be with our friends, as our busy lives expand and family matters often fill up the gaps between work. Life becomes more complicated. But as we get older, we need friends more than ever. In Hamlet, Polonius says: “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried / Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.” Hoops of steel, however, aren’t enough when you reach that age where your friends start to die. 

I’ve been blessed so far, and have always had someone there. But I can’t help thinking of the awful statistic that one in five of us feels lonely all the time.  No-one should feel lonely. If we all take the time to remember them, and particularly the elderly in our community, no one has to.

? As told to Rosa Silverman. For details of Silver Sunday events in your area today, go to silversunday.org.uk or call 020 7641 3609