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recreational facilities for guests and, although the holiday-makers
are generally expected to be active, provision is made for frail and
handicapped elderly persons to be accommodated on the ground
floor.
These excellent holidays provided by the Council for retirement
pensioners resident in the Borough, i.e. men aged 65 years and over
and women of 60 years or more and not in full-time employment,
are comparable with the best. Holidays commence on Friday and
bookings are for a fortnight. Parties are conveyed by escorted
coaches from the various "picking-up" points in the Borough to
and from Westgate. Less active guests are further transported by
minibus to and from their own homes and the "picking-up" points.
Every fortnight, during the period June to October, eight of our
elderly citizens, who for medical reasons require ground floor
accommodation, go to the Greenwich Hotel. Each case, which
is submitted to very careful consideration, is visited to ensure that
the term "holiday hotel" (not convalescent home) is preserved.
The new combined hotel remains open to enable "out of season"
holidays to be taken. Charges are very reasonable and, when
possible, applicants who accept an "off-season" for their initial
holiday are offered a summer booking when the opportunity for
a second holiday arises. Accommodation for the Christmas period
is reserved for persons living alone.
During 1971, some 1,518 guests were accommodated in parties
averaging about 80.
Lunch Clubs and Mobile Meals
Meals-on-wheels are delivered in metal foil containers, a method
introduced in 1969 as an economy measure and, at the end of the
year, these were being delivered at an annual rate of 230,000, an
increase of 31% over the figure for 1970. Persons receiving Mobile
Meals at the end of 1971 numbered 1,050.
A restricted service, for cases of special need, was provided
during Bank Holidays and over the Christmas and Boxing Day
period when meals were delivered to elderly people without charge.
Emergency food packs were again distributed to old people on
the Mobile Meals Register to cover the possibility of the nondelivery
of a meal during severe weather.
Lunch Clubs, introduced during 1963, were a logical extension
of the Meals-on-Wheels Scheme which, with Council support, has
been operating in the Borough for more than a quarter of a
century. Today, no elderly person is more than ¾ of a mile from