Emma Lewell-Buck praises volunteers for ensuring people won’t be lonely this Christmas

This Christmas, many of us will be with our friends and family. Age UK have found that nearly 1.5 million older people will suffer from increased feelings of loneliness.

They also found that over three million of all over 65’s won’t be putting up decorations at all this year and over one million will be eating dinner alone on Christmas Day.

There is nothing worse than feeling alone, it can be soul- destroying. The isolation that many people- not just the elderly- feel can often be a daily, all year-round pain but at Christmas time it can feel particularly acute.

In our local community there is great work being done to combat loneliness and isolation.

South Tyneside Churches Together’s Happy at Home volunteers are active all year-round supporting people in their homes, visiting for a chat and offering some company. They also run Happy Hubs where people across South Tyneside can come together.

Despite all the advances in technology there is no substitute for real social contact. People who volunteer their time to spend with others can also benefit.

I know myself, from volunteering with Re-engage, that they run social and activity groups across the country as well as a Call Companions service.

As one of their Call Companions, I am matched with someone who is housebound and who has limited contact with others, for a regular phone call each week, sometimes more often.

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I know that I look forward to my regular chats. We laugh a lot, share stories and I have learned so much from our discussions. Sometimes I wonder if I get more from the calls than they do!

South Shields people are kind and generous and I know we all keep an eye out for our neighbours and those who might be struggling.

I have loved seeing people on our local ‘Happy to Chat’ benches connecting with each other, I sincerely hope we have more of them in the future.

As this will be my last column before Christmas, I hope you all have a peaceful time and that we can all keep others less fortunate in our thoughts.