Michael's story

On a typical day, says 74-year-old Michael, “I say my prayers, and then my carer comes in to set up breakfast. I spend the rest of the morning watching movies – my favourite is Matilda. I hardly ever see anybody at all unless I go to church and then I see people, but none of them are close.”

Since having a series of mini strokes – which he feels lucky to have survived – Michael has needed to use a wheelchair, and his limited mobility has left him feeling increasingly isolated.

Despite living in the same sheltered accommodation in London for over 15 years, Michael has very little contact with the other residents: “I like to socialise and make friends, but here it's soul-destroying because there's no one that I can talk to or get friendly with because they all keep to themselves.”

Though Michael does have family, including his mother Joyce, his relatives do not live locally and so his contact with them is mostly online. Apart from his church, Michael has most of his social interaction at the Tesco down the road, which he calls his “second home”.

Freedom behind the wheel

Michael was born in the West Indies and moved to the UK as a child. He left school at 16, and over the course of his career, Michael estimates that he had about 200 jobs. Of those, his favourite was with a company car provider . “I would love driving all the way to Stranraer and over to Belfast to deliver the cars, or up to Glasgow, or to Edinburgh, or Manchester, or Liverpool, or even going as far as Jersey. I loved the freedom that driving gives you.”

Driving played a big part in Michael’s free time, too. “As a younger man, I used to have a car, and I would love to go travelling and going on youth hostel journeys. So I'd pick a part of the country to go to and would visit museums and events there – mainly motoring and air shows.”

Michael also enjoyed going on a number of pilgrimages to Lourdes, where he “met a lot of characters and a lot of people.” But he was forced to put his love of travel behind him in 2015, when his doctor gave him his mini strokes diagnosis and told him he could no longer fly. Michael also had to stop driving due to his health problems.

Never easy at Christmas

For Michael, Christmas has never been without challenges. As a child, in the late '50s and '60s, “my parents looked after us, and it was not that easy because of the cold weather. We were not used to it. When you come from the Caribbean, you're used to Christmas in sunshine that's at 30°C.”

While Michael has never got used to the “freezing cold weather”, nowadays it’s Michael’s isolation that makes Christmas even harder. “You get that feeling of loneliness,” he says. “When you're sending cards out, you know you'll never get a card back. That's when it hits you.”

In recent years, Michael has joined a Christmas lunch at a local church in East London, but explains the sense of loneliness that descends upon him when he returns home: “The Christmas spirit is not there because you come back to an empty, quiet building, and it's a quiet flat, and you don't know what to do for the rest of the day.”

“When you come home,” continues Michael, “you don't have anybody. No kids or wife to greet. Nothing at all.”

Finding a “diamond”

Something that will certainly reduce the loneliness for Michael this Christmas – and all year round – are his calls with Age UK telephone befriender Gemma.

It was around a decade ago that Michael spotted a leaflet about the Age UK Telephone Friendship Service. After speaking with Age UK, Michael was paired him up with Gemma and they have been chatting weekly ever since.

“The first time I spoke to Gemma, it was a revelation,” smiles Michael. “We share the same interest in Agatha Christie and J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as plenty of movies too. When she phones, we have a good yacking session for an hour.”

“I’m so thankful to Age UK for setting up the service,” concludes Michael. “Knowing there is always a voice at the end of the phone has been life-changing. I look forward to Gemma's calls with delight – we get on like a house on fire and we crack jokes all the time. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s one hundred percent diamond.”