“It’s depressing,” says 74-year-old Doreen Moore, as tears well up in her eyes. “And it’s getting worse.”
She gestures towards her clothing – revealing she has multiple layers on, including her nightie – to keep warm. It’s late afternoon on a slightly chilly spring day.
Doreen puts a blanket over her legs, explaining that she doesn’t use the gas central heating because she says she’s in arrears and can’t afford it.
Instead she has one bar of an electric fire on in her front room and the door firmly shut to the kitchen and hall to keep in any warmth.
The latest on the cost of living crisis
This was not, says Doreen, how she imagined old age would be. She feels lonely but she is not alone in her situation.
The latest data suggest a fifth of pensioners are living in poverty – but those figures aren’t likely to have kept up with a cost of living crisis that appears to be getting worse by the week.
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“Thank god I’ve got my television,” says Doreen, who was once a traffic warden.
Now she talks about ill health and money worries.
She says: “The other night I went to bed and I felt lovely. And then about 2 o’clock in the morning I thought ‘the heating – I’ve left the heating on’. So I had to come all the way down on the stair lift to turn the heating off. And then you wake up freezing cold.”
Doreen gestures beyond the net curtains to a car parked outside fitted with a mobility scooter and a hoist.
“What’s the point of going out when you can’t afford the petrol?” she says.
“Everything’s going up. I used to get my fresh fruit pots – in two weeks they’ve hiked the price.
“It breaks your heart really. When you get your pension you think ‘I can’t afford it. It’s ridiculous’.”
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Doreen has been brought a book about the Royal Family by Emdad Rahman who started a project called Bookbike London – delivering books on his bike.
“That’s a keepsake,” she says, with a smile.
Emdad has come to see Doreen along with volunteers from the Docklands Community Initiative who are providing food and company to those who are struggling.
Doreen is grateful for their time and their gifts.
But Emdad is worried about the elderly in his community who struggle in silence.
Emdad says: “My greatest fear in terms of living costs and the elderly is there’ll be rising numbers of deaths – the mental health situation will go through the roof and there will be premature deaths. Because of them not being able to feed themselves, clothe themselves or keep themselves warm adequately this will lead to a lot of issues.”
The cost of living crisis is taking a heavy toll across society – but after two years of a pandemic that has picked off the frailest in society it is adding to the isolation and anxiety of the older generation.
In later years the elderly often say their worries seem magnified and more difficult to deal with. And there’s less to look forward to.
Father Tom Pyke of Christ Church in the Isle of Dogs says for some of the elderly who use the church’s food bank he believes shortages somehow evoke memories of the Second World War.
See how much your spending has increased over the past five years
He says: “I think it goes back to their experiences of being brought up in wartime and the experience of there not being enough to go round and having to make do with what they’ve got. And actually digging down into that experience raises all sorts of other anxieties and memories and things like that so it’s painful.”
He says the role of the Church has always been wider than religion.
At the food bank people can collect fresh vegetables and tinned goods but are also offered the chance to share a hot drink and a cake with others – on the day we visit they’re running a raffle.
Volunteers walk alongside some of the elderly carrying a shopping basket for them as they select produce.
Brenda, 78, is picking a cabbage and tells us she is the oldest person at the food bank.
Anna Nicoli didn’t want to say how old she but she is of pension age. She’s turned out beautifully with a lovely golden bun of hair on her head and painted red nails. She requests a moment to top up her red lipstick before we film her.
But when I ask her if she’s struggling her face looks sad as she nods.
“Too much,” she says.
Then there’s Michael Solomons, aged 68, who maintained track on the London underground for nearly 40 years.
For him struggling financially means not having central heating so he has to boil water to have a shave or a proper wash.
Asked about living on a pension he says: “I thought I was going to live comfortably.”
Among the pensioners, it’s a very familiar response.
