The financial struggles of a Sunderland pensioner have been highlighted in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme that showed the impact the cost of living crisis has had on the elderly.
Retired manual worker, John Foster was frightened to put his heating on and turned off his empty fridge and lights due to the rising cost of bills. The 76-year-old was one of a number pensioners from across the country that appeared in the episode called Britain’s Forgotten Pensioners on Tuesday night.
The programme followed three sets of pensioners, including John from Sunderland and Doreen from Tynemouth, across the winter months of 2022 and 2023, as cold snaps combined with high heating and electricity bills make life uncomfortable, lonely and dangerous.
John lives alone in the Pallion home he used to share with his parents, siblings and their pets and explained his anxiety over dealing with his energy costs which had led him to turn off his fridge, and to sit in the dark at night to reserve electricity. He said: "I'm completely on my own. I haven't even got any relations anywhere, I’m just here, that’s it. Existing.”
The heart-wrenching programme showed John - a former shipyard worker - even laying out his funeral arrangements, last will and testament and a set of numbers on his settee before bed in case of his death. He added: "I've got no family, never been married, no kids. Family, if you lose one or two it's bad enough, but if you lose all of them you're completely on your own and it's just a nightmare. I can't believe I'm the last one here. It takes getting your head around it, you just can't work it out."
Asked if he ever feels sad, John said: "You should say 'do you ever feel happy?' Because I'm sad all the time."
The programme also followed the work of Karen Noble, from Pallion Action Group, a local community support service in Sunderland, as she visits John. She tells the story of a home visit she made to a woman in her 70s who had been contemplating suicide due to anxiety and loneliness.
Karen is also shown helping John secure valuable attendance allowance and a subsequent severe disability premium on top of his pension credit. This amounted to an extra £131.25 every week which John had no idea he was entitled to.
After finding this out, he said: "I'm getting a lot more money now, which I've been entitled to for a few years and I didn't know, I had no idea." John can now afford to go shopping and no longer needs to rely on foodbanks.
Karen said: "I know that there's lots of information online, but we all know older people who don't go online. In John's case, if somebody had sat, when his sister had passed away and was on his own, had asked what was going on then that would have highlighted that he needed some additional support.
"Nobody did, so whose responsibility is it and how are we going to solve it? I think it's shocking that we've got a 76-year-old man who could have been getting an additional benefit for 10 years and nobody picked it up."
Also depicted in the programme was 68-year-old Doreen from Tynemouth. When filming began, she was receiving £732.92 every four weeks to pay for her rent, food and bills – and admitted that for the last week of the month she had nothing. The retired cleaner has lived in her flat for 38 years but, since her heating costs have become unaffordable, she has resorted to going to bed at 7.30pm to stay warm.
After being admitted to hospital with pneumonia, which she attributes in part to her cold conditions, she said: “The heating, it costs more. [But] if I don’t put the heating on, I’ll die.”
The exclusive National Energy Action poll commissioned by Channel 4 found that one in five (19%) over 65s went to bed earlier than usual for warmth. The Dispatches programme revealed that 1.8 million older people turned off their heating completely this winter to cut down on gas or electricity, amid rising energy costs.
YouGov polling by National Energy Action uncovered the extent to which older people suffered through the cold weather, with three in five (59%) over 65s saying they used their heating less than they ordinarily would.
Following the airing of the programme, Charity Director at Age UK, Caroline Abrahams said: “Many viewers will be shocked by this programme, and they are right to be. Pensioner poverty fell steadily for a generation but then it rose again and now, as this documentary demonstrates, it's truly back with a vengeance.
“This winter many older people who never expected to struggle financially found they suddenly were. And others, used to managing on a tight budget and brilliant at making every penny count, were totally overwhelmed by soaring prices. What we see in this programme ought to be a wakeup call that prompts an important discussion about how we ensure every older person can live decently and with dignity, free from the fear of the next big unaffordable bill."
Help from Age UK can be found here. Britain’s Forgotten Pensioners: Dispatches can be watched on Channel 4od.
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