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 Children in care homes, the impact of alcoholism, and the strain of undiagnosed disabilities are all subjects featured in the second part of this brand-new series from Community Channel and the BBC. Sarah Falkland introduces the stories and meets some outstanding individuals and charitable organisations working for various good causes across the country.
For many pensioners living in rural areas a combination of isolation, loneliness, poor transport links and little money make the realities of later life very difficult. The situation is such that the national charity Age Concern has teamed up with Oxford Brookes University to undertake a 3-year study of pensioners living in rural areas, beginning in the villages of West Oxfordshire. Sejal Karia from BBC South Today reports.
Dorothy Sowerby is eighty-three and determined to retain her independence despite living alone in a small village deep in the countryside of Oxfordshire. Dorothy is still able to drive her car which affords her some independence, however she still finds herself isolated and lonely. She explains. "In the wintertime when it gets dark around four o’clock and doesn’t get light until nine o’clock in the morning, and it’s too cold to go wandering about, it could well be a week before I see anyone to speak too unless I make an effort to go out. Independence is the biggest thing you can lose when you get older."
 Rural life is becoming increasingly difficult for pensioners through a combination of poor transport, lack of local infrastructure, and the trend towards rural properties being bought as holiday homes. Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow has taken a keen interest in the issue and is using his position as Chancellor of Oxford Brookes and his public profile to advocate greater consultation with rural pensioners. He says, "The time has come for us to consult them to find out what they need; to find out what they need, what they want; to find out what their journey times are like. The fact is that they don’t have a post office or a surgery and have to move into a town to find those things. All these things have to be addressed. You can’t just dump old people in old people’s homes and hope they will go away."
Other stories featured in this second programme include professionals who found their lives deteriorating through alcohol abuse but through local charities put their lives back together, a grandmother running a charity from her front room giving support to families of children with undiagnosed disabilities, and much more.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 02 March 2006 )
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