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52
"We present the Eighth Annual Report for the Southwark Old People's
Welfare Committee for the year 1958/1959, and in doing so we would like
to express our gratitude to the Borough Council for its valuable support
and for the generous grants which it has made to us during the past
year. To the Mayor for his support and encouragement. Also to all those
both young and old who have given their practical help to the aged in
so many different ways.
We are very happy to say that this will be our last report in our
present cramped quarters. Every year we have closed our annual report
with the words that we could do more if we had the room. Soon we shall
be getting that extra room. In June we hope to move into St. Albans
Hall, Penton Place, where there will be plenty of room to expand the
service to the aged in the Borough of Southwark.
This thickly populated area is full of tenement buildings, and
poverty, loneliness and ill-health still abound in spite of many Welfare
Services; so often loneliness being accoraoanied by a loss of personal
pride is the insidious cause of ill-health. Among old people we find
that friends have died, relatives have moved away and it is difficult
for'them to make new friends, so the old folk become more and more left
to themselves, thinking about the past. Some neglected people become
dirty in their habits, careless about their personal appearance, and
for them senility comes along rapidly. But most of them are fighting
bravely, and there is no courage in the world greater than this endless
heroism'of the aged. Visiting in this area is a most important part of
our work, it can never be hurried, and we try patiently and lovingly to
get to know all about the lonely ones; their families, now scattered;
the beloved wife or husband who is no longer alive; so that they can
talk to us as friends who know and understand their loneliness.
To all those who read this report we would say; can you find time
to befriend an old person? To visit regularly, to tell about your family
and its doings, to get your family interested too. We feel very strongly
that if every lonely old person could be adopted by a family, half the
problems of old age would be over come.
This year has been a very busy one, 1,039 old people have come to
us for help, many of them with problems which seemed at first insoluble,
but after a time, with careful thought, investigation, and in some cases
discussions with members of the family, a solution has been found and
the old person made happy and contented. In many cases when an old
person is too infirm or senile we are made their agents to draw their
pension and to pay their weekly expenses. Housekeeping - as every housewife
will know - is not an easy task, especially when there is only the
age pension, and after weekly expenses are paid, it is very often
difficult to find enough cash for the little extra which we know they
will look for when we take the shopping home to them.