STV Loneliness Article
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Brian, Inverness
Brian is 70-years-old. He’d been married to Margaret for almost 40 years. They did everything together. They were best friends. But as the lockdown began in 2020, she started to display signs of dementia. She deteriorated very quickly and died a few weeks later.
Brian has three grown-up children and they stayed with him for as long as they could after Margaret’s funeral. But eventually they had to go back to work.
Brian said that he started to feel lonely and isolated shortly after the death of his wife. Credit: ITV News
He grieved during a time when Covid restrictions were still in place. And then he had two falls, which reduced his mobility and freedom even more.
Sitting in a quiet house, he felt very, very isolated. At one point, he told us, he thought about ending his life.
But things have got better for Brian. He got involved with a Befriending charity, Befrienders Highland, which arranged a half hour phone call every week from a man called Iain.
That small amount of human contact has made a world of difference. He’s even trained to become a befriender himself to help others who feel isolated.
