1 Year Telephone Befriending Anniversary!

Our client Maurice and his Befriending Volunteer Michelle, recently celebrated 1 year of telephone friendship, below is their story.

Maurice, Befriending Client, His story

Maurice spent 19 years looking after his mother, who suffered with Parkinson’s and who later sadly passed away from cancer. Due to caring for his mother, his relationships with friends broke down. He now lives alone with his cat Jack.

Since losing his mother, Maurice has undergone cataract operations, which left him with limited vision in one eye that has affected his balance. This brought on anxiety and panic attacks when leaving his home in case he were fall.

Spending time at home made him become more withdrawn and isolated at home. With the help from our Counselling Service, he has become in a much better place and decided to try our Befriending Service.

He was quickly allocated to his telephone befriender, Michelle.

A year on Maurice has expressed how having Michelle has really made a difference to him. His words are “Michelle is wonderful. She is just like me, we are able to talk about everything and anything. Things that matter and things that don’t. We can be serious or just have a laugh. We can talk about anything completely irrelevant and it’s great. Michelle calls me every Thursday no matter where she is, even when on holiday, and I really look forward to speaking to her”.

Michelle, Befriending Volunteer

I found out about volunteering with Age UK Coventry and Warwickshire through work. I was soon matched with Maurice, and since day one our conversations just flow and before we know it an hour has passed. We have so much in common from our interests in nature, our pets and gardening so we’re never short of conversation.

I look forward to our weekly chats and know how much Maurice looks forward to them too, it’s like checking in and catching up with a friend who I’ve known for years. Maurice has so much to offer in his chats and shares with me his tips for the garden and we share places we’ve visited, we put the world to rights and more recently Maurice has been a great support to me when I lost my dad suddenly. He shared some of his experiences and feelings he had when he lost his mum.

It’s nice to know you’re making a difference and giving someone something to look forward to each week and I’d encourage everyone to give it a go, you never know, you could find yourself needing this kind of support in the future yourself.

To find out more about our Befriending Service, click here.

To find out more about volunteering for Age UK Coventry & Warwickshire click here.