“41% of Britons over 65 describe their pet or the television as their main source of company”. (TNS poll for Age UK/ The Times)
It makes you wonder what elderly people did before the 1950s and the advent of television. Some wrote poetry, others read a book (that’s that rectangular thing made of paper, with a colored cover and a lot of words). Some had friends round and complained about the world in general (a crucial part of ageing). Many grew rhubarb or giant marrows, or played darts in the Constitutional Club. Some people actually walked their pets, sometimes as far as five hundred yards!
In case you don’t get the point: they did something. All Epicureans should do something, not just watch a re-run of an Agatha Christie’s “Poirot” for the third time.
We can’t talk – we watch an episode of “Midsomer Murders” every night. It tells you something about television and current taste when there is a “Midsomer Murder” every night. There has to be a huge market for it. Usually the murderer is a “toff”., which makes the man in the street feel a lot better. If they could make it a banker every night that would be better still.
Some older people find it difficult to “get about” due to arthritis, or some other debilitating disease; some live in areas which need a car to transport them to their friends because of the badly integrated public transport system; some do not have the money to pay for a bus ride ; some are deaf, and don’t get on with their hearing aids; some hardly have a window box let alone a patch of earth on which to grow marrows; some have lost confidence in their community, if indeed they have a community in this Thatcherite society where every one is looking after themselves; some don’t have families or if they do the family lives a long way away.
I could go on if I could think of other examples.
In Epicurus day the communities were small and probably caring of each other, particularly since the elderly were few and far between and therefore looked upon with respect. So it is up to US youngsters to seek out and find these lonely people and encourage them with our company.