Dr John Hayward comments

Dr John Hayward

Anand Tucker's moving and thought-provoking 2007 film starring Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth asks when you last saw your father - really saw your father: not just by being together in the same place, but by seeing what makes him tick, seeing the complete human being as he is known to his friends.

Sadly, research indicates that as many as one in eight adults have gone a whole year or more without seeing their parents at all and a staggering one person in five with an elderly father is no longer in touch with him, with more than two in five claiming they live too far away from their elderly parents and one in four claiming to be too busy to maintain contact. Just one in five older people get to see their children at least once a month, while more than a quarter of those who live in a different part of the country from their grandchildren go for a month without even hearing a word from them on the phone.

A third of the UK's elderly population live alone, including half of all women over 65. Of the million elderly men who live alone in the UK, half have no human contact - no contact with friends and no contact from their families - and many feel trapped inside their homes. More than a million pensioners suffer from loneliness, almost half a million leave their homes only once a week and a further 300,000 are completely housebound. According to a British Social Attitudes study, a quarter of people over 65 say they have no 'best friend'.

This poses a huge challenge - and opportunity - to the Church and other community and faith-based groups. As the Jubilee Centre wrote in our 1990 publication From Generation To Generation, 'There are two tasks in particular of which the Church is especially capable. They are the spiritual care of the elderly and those who care for elderly relatives, and the practical support of those elderly people who need care, and of their carers.'

In our forthcoming completely revised edition of this report, we note that the biblical model envisions older people playing a significant part in the community, as an example to others and bringing benefit through their age and experience. We all enjoy a mutual interdependence with others that means we are individually and collectively diminished for every person with whom we should have a natural relationship but from whom we allow the excuses of long office hours, kids' homework and after-school activities, of illness, infirmity and feeling too tired to separate us.

Rather than ask where the family and friends of the elderly who live in your community are, spend a moment to ask what you and your church are doing to demonstrate care and support to the elderly and others who live alone in your neighbourhood. Like most of us, many may initially resist offers of help - a combination of not wanting to be the recipient of what might be perceived as charity, not wanting to feel a burden to others, and not wanting to give up a belief that we are independent. However, it is imperative that we help shoulder the burdens of others - for the truth is we are all dependent on others and benefit from being able to love just as much as from being loved.

So, who is your neighbour? Who should you make it a priority to phone tonight or visit this weekend? Who in your neighbourhood or church might you invite round for a drink and a chat or to watch a favourite television programme? Whether you are old or young, who might you encourage today?