Reconnecting after Lockdown

Our amazing team of volunteers give their time and energy to help older people live a happy, connected and purposeful later life. The pandemic has been particularly challenging to connect with older people in real life but when restrictions lifted this summer, our volunteer Alan helped his match, Dennis*, put a spring back in his step!

In July, our volunteer Alan was matched with Dennis and as their visits progressed, Alan learnt more about Dennis’s past and some of his favourite times. Dennis used to play cricket at his local club in the 1960s and it turned out he was a bit of a legend back in the day. Alan went on to research the club and contacted them to see if they knew anything of Dennis’s sporting highlights. Alan told us,

“I asked the club if they had anything in the archives about Dennis that I could take along to visits They put me in touch with one of Dennis’s old team-mates who still went to some of the home games and he emailed me asking if he could visit Dennis. When I told Dennis his face lit up and he was thrilled at the prospect of seeing him. They last saw each other in 1960 so had a lot to catch up on!”

Although Dennis was not confident enough to attend a game himself, Alan arranged for his team-mate to pop in with his wife for a long overdue catch up. They reminisced for 2 ½ hours and Dennis even asked his daughter to find the ball he’d kept that marked the day he took 9 wickets for 11 runs to show them. Dennis’s daughter was grateful to Alan for putting them back in touch and says her Dad now has a spring back in his step.

With Alan’s help, Dennis has been able to reconnect with some old friends and rebuild the link with his community through the cricket club. Being able to help Dennis in this way is priceless and we’re very grateful to Alan and volunteers like him for all that they do — we will get Dennis to that game!

*Name has been changed to protect confidentiality