Dame Esther Rantzen: Summertime Desmond has lost its magic for me

It is the perfect time to create golden memories of building sand castles or laughing at the clowns in the big top. But not if you are part of the silver generation living on your own, sometimes imprisoned in your home through physical or mental frailty.

The Silver Line, the helpline for older people, is already seeing the numbers of calls increasing day by day as the summer holiday period takes hold. 

Last year August 7 was our busiest day and in July and August we regularly receive 4,000 more calls from older people desperate for a friendly voice.

With so many of the people they depend upon away on holiday, the neighbours’ homes empty, even the doctor, the carer, the local shopkeeper away, for isolated older people this can be the loneliest time of the year.

I  know the feeling. Holidays are difficult for me too since my beloved husband Desmond Wilcox died. We used to look forward to our holidays together with huge pleasure. 

My photo albums are filled with joyous scenes of our children playing on the beach or Desmond and me off on some adventure, riding on mules down to the bottom of Grand Canyon or drinking a glass of wine in a medieval French village. 

But since I lost him holidays have lost their magic.

My personal definition of loneliness is to have plenty of people to do something with but nobody to do nothing with. 

And yet I know how lucky I am with a busy life and a family nearby.

All the same, as a widow living on my own, when I get home at night my flat is dark and empty. 

There is nobody to have a cup of tea with, to lie next to in bed, to share laughter and tears with at the end of the day, to plan a holiday with. 

And when I do go for a weekend away with friends or my family, that is often when I miss Desmond the most. He loved sailing and when I watch the sun set behind little boats bobbing at anchor the pangs become unbearable. 

So I understand why so many callers who ring The Silver Line tell us that the summer can be the loneliest time of the year.

Callers like Alice, 87, who is also a widow. Not many people look forward to a visit to the dentist. Alice does. It will be her only outing this summer. Like many older people on their own she is stranded at home. 

Reluctant to complain, determined not to “be a burden”, most of us are unaware that our summer holidays have become a term of imprisonment for her.

Alice has become a regular caller to The Silver Line Helpline. Living alone since her dear husband Julian died five years ago, like many older people she cannot get out without help due to her disability, “a knee and hip replacements which did not go as planned”.

She was due to go to a physiotherapy session this week but couldn’t “because the volunteer who kindly takes me was away on holiday. 

“Summer does drag on and I suppose it makes it more difficult because of the feeling subconsciously that other people are going out and enjoying their time together, the way I used to with my husband,” she said. 

“Now my only outing is to the dentist. And I’m a bit worried that the volunteers who take me there might not be able to if they are on holiday.”

Volunteers go on holiday and so do virtual friends like the radio DJs and the television presenters who fill the void left by friends and family and are badly missed during the long summer days.

Silver Line caller Amy, 84, also lives alone. She suffered a serious fall in her home last year breaking her leg and her wrist. 

Fortunately her neighbours heard her cries for help and alerted the police who broke in and took her to hospital. Since then she has suffered from anxiety and panic attacks.

But every August she dreams of returning to Frinton where her parents had their beach hut and she spent many happy holidays with her husband Bernard. 

“Frinton’s rather a posh place,” she told me proudly, “We loved its green sward and the lovely beaches. We used to explore so many local places together. Our social life was there. Now I just manage to walk up and down my garden.”

She has fortnightly visits from a volunteer from the befriending charity Independent Age. “I do look forward to those visits, we get on so well,” she said.

Doris too explained that while she also keeps her feelings of loneliness to herself most of the time she finds it liberating to be able to admit them to a stranger on a helpline. 

She is 92 and rang because she said: “All my friends and everyone I know are going away and I’m dreading the next seven days with no one coming to visit. The chap in my local shop that I usually have a chat with is away so I’ve been going to the supermarket which I hate.

“My son and my daughter are on holiday, they need it because they work very hard. So I have been calling The Silver Line a lot because I have no one else to speak to all day. I feel so low.”

These days we find that many of our Silver Line callers are referred to us by health workers, the receptionist in the surgery, the carer, the pharmacist. 

Voluntary and statutory organisations should also be aware of the vacuum in many older people’s lives caused by the holiday season which makes them feel like Ellen, from Cornwall. She wrote to me: “My days are pointless and I am a waste of space.”

How can we help? Perhaps students on their long vacations could consider volunteering, to make sure that Alice’s physiotherapy session is not cancelled, perhaps they could even organise Amy’s trip to Frinton. 

Maybe the Women’s Institute or the National Trust could think about holding summertime picnics for older people, to create new memories over a cup of tea in a lovely garden. 

Even a phone call from a family abroad to a grandparent left behind would make a difference.

And do remember that The Silver Line is open every day and night of the year, free, confidential, for friendship or advice. 

If we work together we could create holiday parole for those isolated older people who are imprisoned in solitary confinement, not for a crime, just for growing old.

For more information on The Silver Line call 0800 4708090 or go to thesilverline.org.uk