val’s story

They’ve done lots for people during Covid here at Age UK.

“My daughter got a job here and then after a while she said to me, “Mum, why don’t you come,” because I’d lost her Dad and I was down in the dumps and that. So, I did a little bit on reception – just when I was needed really, to help out. I also came and helped when they had the open day, with a choir and all the stalls and that. It is lovely here. It’s very welcoming, and the people are nice.

When I lost my husband, it was so hard, but I just carried on doing everything I’d done before because that’s the kind of person I am. Dancing really helped me – I used to teach it but I don’t any more. I still go dancing two or three times a week and there’s dancing here. So I mainly come to Age UK as a participant now, on a Tuesday morning for dancing.

Places like this get people like me together. I’ve joined the Tuesday morning strength and balance -and there’s two classes first with dance. Now it’s not exactly line dancing although you’re in a line, there’s no turns like in line dancing, no spins, it’s not like that, it’s grapevines and all that. It’s essentially doing line dancing but it’s not as energetic. So sometimes I stay, and I do the ten o’clock dance, and then I do the strength and balance. 

I’ve always been active: cycling and walking with my husband. When we lost him I thought I’ve got to do something. And I was a bit nervy about joining things. Although I’m quite outgoing, I was a bit worried about going to places. And then one day one of the girls I sat with at one of my dance classes, just said, “we want to go for a walk, do you want to take us a walk?” Because I was just going out for walks on my own, I said, “Yeah, if you want.” So we did this thing at Cutacre, just a group of us, we had a walk around, went in the pub and had a drink and a chat. And then I said to them, “Would you like a walk every week on a Wednesday, if it suits you?” and they all came back, “Oh yeah, I can do Wednesday,” “I can do Wednesday,” “Oh yeah, where are we going?” So I took them everywhere, all over the moors and everywhere, we’d just meet up and usually there were about seven of them. 

Everybody was walking weren’t they during Covid, so my daughter said, “You know, you’re doing these walks Mum, why don’t you do one for us at Age UK?” And I said, “Well I know what I could do, I could do a bus walk.” It was still lockdown, but for a while you could get out the door. So I started thinking about if you get on a bus at the bus station, and then you get off at Newbrook Road, then you can enter Cutacre and walk across, come out the other end, you can get a 582 back. So I went in the car and parked up where it would stop, and then I walked it, measured it on my phone: two miles. I did probably about five or six of these walks which Age UK put in a little booklet to give people ideas. I liked doing that because I’m quite good at organising things.

Some people probably have changed because of Covid. But I think people have forgotten that there were a lot of things you couldn’t do. People coming into the centre were bothered about the Covid issue, but I think they were really glad to get back in company when things lifted and were probably willing to risk it. They’ve done lots for people during Covid here at Age UK.”