Would you like a cup of tea??

So loneliness is the new scourge of the elderly apparently.  I don't wish to downplay it, but I am always wary of these "one size fits all" approaches to the human condition.  I'm sure there are old people living on their own who feel lonely and isolated - I'm equally sure (speaking as one of them) that there are old people living on their own who are quite content to be doing so and who would not welcome any approach by well-meaning "do-gooders" trying to get them to socialise or join some local club or other.  All this seems to have come to a head as a result of the body of an old lady being found in her flat where apparently she had been lying dead for some six years.  The immediate reaction is that this is somehow shameful, and an indictment of an uncaring society, but maybe she was one of those who was happy with her own company and wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I am irresistibly reminded of the old story of an elderly person standing at a kerb minding their own business and being dragged across the road by a boy scout when they didn't want to cross anyway. Don't stick everybody in the same pigeonhole!