The plight of the old
Sir: Under the heading of ' Old Age' your distinguished weekly on July 12, 1963, published a letter from me signed with my initials S.M. The result was quite astonishing and high credit was due to The Spectator and some of its readers for their sympathy and humanity. It was all the more gratifying to me by reason of the fact that I have been a regular reader of The Spectator for at least sixty years and further was on friendly terms with one or two of its former editors.
In my letter of July 12, 1963, I stated that it was most distasteful for me to quote details of my own case and that I only did so to give a concrete and factual example of how thousands of old people exist in this country today. I am afraid our position has not changed. Those of us who are still alive are nine years older than we were in 1963. I am now seventy-eight and my wife, partially crippled by a spinal disability, is four years younger. It is true that we now get £15.50 per week, but with the rising costs and inflation we are practically back to where we were in 1963. During this last winter heating alone has come to £2.50 per week. There is no central heating and basements can be like ice houses, particularly when one is no longer in the first flush of youth.
The question of clothing is the major problem. With food, with great care, and not much variety we can just manage. Amusements there are none, apart from a radio. Holidays, we have not been away from here since long before I wrote in 1963. My wife has fortunately plenty of clothes which kind people sent her. For women it is a little better in that direction. My own problem is quite different. I have no hope at all of ever getting any clothes. I have three or four suits which were sent by kindly people, but they were all pre1939 before they reached me, and now they are all over thirty years old. Now Sir, I am not appealing for charity or for clothes, but I am saying on behalf of thousands of old folk that this is a pretty grim state of affairs. Does society think that because we are in our late seventies we no longer have any pride of person? I am only one of thousands who cannot, or who are afraid to, speak or write for themselves.
If you are kind enough to publish this I may be " shot at" for writing so frankly but as one's years are now getting very near towards the final count I have nothing more to lose, but I hope what I have written will help to awake society's conscience to the abject plight of thousands who have no pressure group to fight for them.
S.M.
Previous page
