Do you feel lonely at times?
A minister for loneliness has been appointed to help tackle the misery endured by around nine million Britons.
Theresa May has backed a series of recommendations made by the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, which highlighted how widespread the problem is.
As well as announcing Tracey Crouch will become the minister responsible for the issue, the Prime Minister said a cross-government strategy to find ways to stop people feeling lonely will be published later this year.
A study by The Co-op and the British Red Cross showed more than nine million people always or often feel lonely, while Age UK found 200,000 older people have not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month and Scope said up to 85% of young disabled adults feel lonely.
The Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, chaired by Labour’s Rachel Reeves and Conservative Seema Kennedy, worked with 13 charities over the last year to help find solutions to the problem. Ms Reeves and Ms Kennedy said: “We are really pleased to see that the Government is taking the issue of loneliness very seriously with its prompt response to our report. Jo Cox said that ‘young or old, loneliness doesn’t discriminate’.
What is your experience? Do you feel lonely at times? How do you cope? What do you think should be done to tackle this widespread issue? If you were the new Minister for Loneliness what would you do?
What are your views?
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We don't tolerate swearing, and reserve the right to remove any posts which we feel may offend others... let's keep it friendly!
You then suggested that we share the vote with our friends and see what they think.
Some folk don't have friends to share things with, how could that be possible? No Friends?
Is it possible? Are there folk out there on their own with no friends?
For all sort of reasons, one being I find it very difficult to meet and find friends.... I am lonely.
Not old enough for bingo and too old for singles bars it is very difficult at any age
Following my return to the UK in 1992 my social life revolved around my business: Manchester's first BackPackers Hostel.
Now, as a formerly self-employed/sole trader and a single woman with no children, I find myself with very few friends in this country and single women of whatever age are rarely included in invitations to Dinner Parties!
20 years ago I was the person keeping an eye on two of my elderly neighbours, each of whom was living in 2 rooms of a 6-bedroom Victorian terraced house but occupying just 2 rooms on the ground floor as they could not afford to heat their homes, nor could they easily manage to the stairs. I now find myself in a similar situation.
My solution: I'm now in the process of setting-up the 'golden-oldies' version of the Youth Hostel Association (YHA): 3rd Age Hostelling and Housing (3ahh.org).
3ahh.org will encourage walking, talking and socialising amongst all age groups. We won't discriminate against the young, but our charitable aims will benefit the 'golden-oldie' 3rd Agers.
The word 'Housing' in our name, 3rd Age Hostelling and Housing, indicates our interest in encouraging inter-generational housing, perhaps via Housing Co-operatives, suitable for the needs of both old and young.
As anyone who has worked alone will know, working alone, without any outside support, makes the task much harder. If you would like to be involved please say "Hello" on facebook and, if nothing else, we'll all have something else to talk about when we collar a stranger on the bus!
I am better placed than you in that we can converse quite well, but to quote Timothy West at the opening sequence of his narrow boat TV series, 'our lives are now quite narrow.' For myself this is not a great problem as I enjoy solitude but my dear wife really was a true 'people person.' She is taking her isolation from others very hard.
She has children, now in their forties. One, her son has run away because he lives in a perfect urban world and mum doesn't achieve his idea of perfection and a daughter who is very good to both of us, but she is in a new relationship and has two teen aged kids and so her time is limited. But she does her best for her mother, and me.
In the latter part of my working life I was a resident carer for many elderly, and very infirm people. I didn't work for peanuts so my agency gave me wealthy clients mostly. I have to say their families only wanted their estate and resented the fact I was well paid to do the job which, by right of being blood family, was theirs to do. So sadly, this is so common these days.
Keep in contact Anne, the blue square on the right of the screen leads to a private chat function. I'll look out for you.
I used to be far less lonely working alone on a farm that I was in a city crowd.
Children have all left home .
I work un sociable hours as a taxi driver .
A genuine question. .
Coming from a generation where marriage is for life . I'm finding it hard to adjust to being single at my age . I'm prob blethering but a single man in his 50s is a very lonely place x
I like solitude at times, that is not loneliness to me.
If a government minister can come up with solutions for the many reasons that make people lonely, then the list below is going to take money, effort and time.
With this thread the pendulum swings.
Loneliness is :-
Community indifference
Losing a partner/ friend
Grief
Family displacement/ discord
Immobility
Agoraphobia/ fear of going out
Deafness
There is more reasons.
I can vouch through experience that loss of hearing can slowly bring about withdrawal if it is not treated. Withdraw from society and then loneliness can occur.
I am of the understanding that enough supervision should be given to anyone with this malady.
Long NHS waiting lists and expensive aids hinder and deter the delay of improving the general well-being for those with hearing loss.
Now where does a government minister begin to combat loneliness?
Solitude is a different matter. That I've embraced for years. Time alone to wallow in the beauty of creation, time to pause for thoughts, time to pray silently. Time, away from the bustling crowds and time just to be.
Solitude is a powerful blessing indeed.
'Go down the pub' and chat to people is one recipe but, if your local is like mine, this might well be counter productive say the least.
Another observation is that, when you are in another persons company after a time of loneliness, within minutes you are feeling irritable with them and keen for your own company again.
Perhaps a word like 'disconnection' might describe the experience better than 'loneliness'.
Whatever you call it - there is a lot of it about!
I am basically jealious when I hear friends and neighbours talking about the stress of Christmas and the plans they have to keep changing. I would like some of their stress. To have people around. After Christmas one friend said "you could have come out with us for dinner". But like me, they are in their own little space so next year I am volunteering my time to anyone who wants me.
My second wife, although stricken with MS, is bubbly, ever talking and fussing around. Yes, I thank Heaven for her.
My wife comes from a large family, many aunts, uncles, cousins etc., and in their young days there were close knit. In her mid thirties her than husband's work brought the nuclear family to Norwich, a move which her Staffs/Worcestershire family didn't forgive, and they haven't to this day. Ten years later, as a divorced lady she married me; that upset the family applecart I can tell you!
Today, and for the last four years she has been ill with MS. Such is the unforgiveness among her blood family no one calls and they don't answer her calls.
In both our separate and shared experiences of family it is a fragile thing these days, driven not by traditional values of loyalty and love and duty but by ... well I don't know what. I no longer know what the term family means.
That her blood family has separated themselves from her hurts my wife badly, a hurt she doesn't need with MS. She knows too well I have a short fuse and she won't allow me to even speak with them on the phone.
You're right again ... as we grow older we must be more forgiving of others. Someone wrote, walk a mile on their shoes before you judge them. Here you must forgive me, I'm of a Judaeo/Christian spirituality. I would care not to judge anyone outside the guidelines given in the New Testament.
That means, in short, I don't judge but love. In the Greek of the New Testament, that love is brotherly love, so I have a love for everyone, no matter what they've done, or are doing. Yes, I love them all.
Wilf, I've met some amazing people who just need to know this ... someone loved them. Love comes in surprising forms ... a bed for the night on a rainy night, a meal and a bath; a few times a person burdened with guilt pouring it all out in front of a warm fire and after a good meal.
That happens even now.
Yes, this world would be a much better place if we would but reach out in brotherly love to one another. Love the unloved, help the helpless ...
But we won't. We're now all too selfish, aren't we?
I worked till I was seventy two and still miss doing what I did being out every day having figured out the night before what I was going to do for my customers.
My lady friend and I go to many places, or used to, but with things getting more and more expensive it is getting more difficult.