Volunteers are our frontline support for the lonely

There are times when we all rely on the company of our nearest and dearest to cheer us up, but there is a huge number of older people in our communities who are deprived of such simple pleasures through no fault of their own for long periods at a time.
John Shannon is 97 and still volunteersJohn Shannon is 97 and still volunteers
John Shannon is 97 and still volunteers

Loneliness is linked to serious health problems and has become a worryingly unnoticed epidemic that particularly affects older people whose friends, partners and family are either no longer around or have moved away. It is also a problem for carers who too often suffer in silence as the burden of looking after a relative or friend takes its toll on their own well-being.

And so it is vitally important, if the loneliness scourge is to be tackled, that people volunteer for support services run by charities.

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John Shannon is an outstanding example of a selfless volunteer. At the age of 97, he has been a volunteer for various charities for 80 years - a feat that currently sees him shortlisted to be named Britain’s Best Volunteer and has already seen him recognised in the Royal Voluntary Service’s Diamond Champions Awards.

John Shannon is 97 and still volunteersJohn Shannon is 97 and still volunteers
John Shannon is 97 and still volunteers

John now volunteers with Harrogate Easier Living Project (HELP), for its Carers’ Time Off service involving visits to carers’ homes to give them respite and for the charity’s Supporting Older People befriending service.

John, who lives in Harrogate having originally moved to Baildon after leaving Essex to pursue a career in education, became a volunteer with Carers’ Time Off in 2011, following the death of his wife Eileen after a long illness. He was supported by volunteers from the charity who gave him the opportunity to take a break from his full-time caring commitments. Since volunteering with HELP himself, John has supported six carers and currently visits a gentleman ten years his junior.

He tells the Yorkshire Post that volunteering is simply something he was brought up to do: “I moved into volunteering from the fact that my family were great volunteers - my parents William and Dorothy - chiefly with the Scouts, Guides, Brownies and the Cubs. My mother must have been among the founding members of the WRVS and my father was in the Air Raid Precautions. He volunteered as a bomb disposal expert in the Second World War.

“One just accepted that it was something you did.”

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John’s voluntary work started with a stint as secretary for the League of Nations Union Society in Essex as a 17-year-old when he would help with administrative tasks after schools. Deciding, more recently, to join HELP was an easy choice: “I had help myself with my wife. She was stuck in bed for three years. When she died I felt that I wanted to pay back a bit.

“My wife was unable to speak for two-and-a-half years so I had no one to talk to. Being there for someone seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the support was an enormous help and I would look forward to someone coming in. It’s difficult to describe, to have that support of someone coming in to let you take a breather is far greater than you would imagine.

“I visit people when I am instructed to and spend time with them, and I fulfil whatever need they have for my time. It may be that they just want to talk, some of them hardly talk at all and like to look at pictures and books. Some are in great pain. You have no idea until you see it, some of these people are in pain all day long.

“Loneliness is the chief issue I come across. There’s an enormous amount of need for simple visiting like I do which requires no great skill. If half the retired people were prepared to do it, Great Britain would be the envy of the world.

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“I think the responsibility has to fall to people who are retired because they have got the time. There aren’t many retired people who couldn’t afford to spend a couple of hours a week volunteering.”

Anyone can volunteer says Emma Atkinson, 25, of Bingley, who insists it is suited to young people too. Emma balances part-time work and studying for a degree in social care with spending an hour a week visiting older people in their homes as part of the befriending service at Shipley and Bingley Voluntary Services.

“It’s about being a friend for someone, being someone to talk to and feeling that they have someone there for them. You don’t realise how much time some people spend alone until you do something like this. It’s quite sad.

“I wanted to do some local volunteering work because I thought I have the time to do something and I wanted to make a positive change. Now that I have started I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing it. An hour a week is nothing.”

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- To vote for John Shannon to be named Britain’s Best Volunteer visit www.markeluk.com/britains-best-volunteer.aspx

Back our campaign

The Yorkshire Post wants loneliness to be universally recognised as a health priority in our communities.

Nine of the region’s health and well-being boards fail to give significant mention of loneliness and social isolation in their over-arching strategies and we want you, our readers, to support our campaign by downloading a letter from our website and sending it to your local health and well-being board.

In partnership with the Campaign to End Loneliness, we also want to encourage more people to volunteer for support services.

For details about volunteering with HELP, call 01423 813090 and for opportunities with Shipley and Bingley Voluntary Services, call 01274 781222