The Pilgrims’ Friend Society began in 1807 as a grass-roots response to Sunday sermons preached in Nonconformist chapels in London about material and spiritual poverty among older people, including many in the congregations who begged on the streets during the rest of the week. It became pan-denominational, and had Shaftesbury, [William] Wilberforce, and Spurgeon among its early supporters.
They originally collected money for pensions and visited the poor: friendship and fellowship were seen to be as important as cash. But, by 1830, they realised all the pension money was going on rent; so they provided housing.
Today, we live with about 700 people in residential care homes or living independently in housing schemes spread across the country. We’re investing in new care homes to replace old buildings, and taking on the stewardship of homes owned by smaller, struggling charities. We keep our standards high by investing in the virtuous cycle of wonderful care, leading to high occupancy.
We expect people to pay the going rate for care or rents for accommodation; but we can also welcome people who rely on local-authority funding, even though that often doesn’t cover the full costs of care. Donations and legacies help bridge this gap, and we can still invest in keeping the quality of care high.
Our charitable object is to advance the Christian faith among older people, and address the issues of disadvantage that affect them. We place just as much emphasis on spiritual support as any other support; so we can require that people who lead our work are practising Christians and can lead the devotional life of our homes. They set our standards, though the majority of our staff are of all faiths and none. In recent years, we’ve recruited overseas staff known to us through existing colleagues and Christian mission projects. This Christian commitment shows in the quality of interactions between people, daily worship and fellowship, and a respect for Christian practices such as grace at mealtimes.
The Bible talks of God “placing the lonely in families”, and the language of “family” is used in scripture to describe our relationship with God and with each other. So, just as in a family, we expect people to contribute to life in our homes, and we invest time and effort in helping people do that as they are able, perhaps helping get ready meals or by sharing in our daily worship. We train our staff intensively to live well with people who have dementia.
We’ve had people of different religions living with us, though it’s clearly a Christian environment. I was leading a service once when the children of a Hindu lady came from their temple to visit her, and we had a good conversation. They liked the idea of a home that believed in “a god”, and were very happy for their mum to be part of worship. It gave them a high degree of trust in the way we looked after her.
There’s a spiritual dimension that matters to people, and, though less than half the population now identify as Christian, three-quarters of older people do, even if they rarely go to church. So, it’s not just practising Christians who choose to live with us, though we have a much higher proportion than most care homes. It’s important, because people who share a common faith, including people with dementia, make friends and share fellowship with each other. It’s really lovely to see.
Like any Christian family, we worship together at home; but we also invite local clergy and laity to lead worship, and holy communion services. We trust that they also benefit from partnering with us as experts in elder care.
We work well with the NHS, and, by and large, the NHS works well for us. We’ve just launched a campaign, “Empowering Communities”, highlighting how charities and churches can help the NHS by joining up what can be silos of state provision.
Funny you should ask what I wanted to be when I was eight. That’s when I first remember being asked if I wanted to follow Jesus. The answer was: “Yes . . .” but not “. . . and to care for older people”, though from student days I’ve been involved with my church in visiting older people and leading youth work.
Some 15 years ago, I led a network of charities funding community-led social action. Before that, I was a director at Tearfund, when we commissioned research to identify key issues, one of which was our ageing population and the loneliness and isolation that this would bring unless society responded. As a result, we started to fund projects reaching out to older people, many church-linked. When I discovered Pilgrims’ Friend Society with its vision that no older person should die alone without Christian hope, joining it was something of a no-brainer.
Older people might resist going into residential care for two main reasons: natural caution and nervousness about change, and the dreadful reputation that care homes have. When people come to us for temporary respite care, they nearly always change their minds.
The bigger issue today is that many need and want care, but government funding isn’t sufficient for its provision. Age UK estimates that one-and-a-half million people have care rationed in this way. This can place an intolerable burden on people and their carers.
My prayer is that more and more churches connect with us, and with our sister-charity Faith in Later Life, so older people hear about Jesus, contribute to life and the community around them, and are comforted and supported as death approaches.
This is happening, but the headwinds are significant. The system for funding adult social care needs addressing. And developments that are great for most of us — like the shift to doing things online — tend to further marginalise those who are dependent on the old ways of doing things.
My childhood was good and happy, in a Christian family that involved making lots of things: fishing rods, go-karts, putting greens, etc. Today, I’m blessed with a family that includes my grandchildren, and still my parents. We’re trying to create residential homes where older people still contribute and make things — but maybe not go-karts.
My experience of God as that eight-year-old led to me taking the Bible seriously as God’s word, revealing Jesus through the Holy Spirit. It was a Bible study of Acts that led to me leaving Barclays and my share options in 2000. It was noticing how everyone skated over the bit where it says all the believers shared their possessions in common. The words leapt out of the page at me. I didn’t know how I should respond at the time, but this led me to join Tearfund. It had profound implications for us financially: my wife took a cleaning job, we gave up expensive holidays. . . But the family bought into that. It was the right thing to do. I’m very pleased to be where I am.
It makes me angry when people are cynical and negative. There’s so much good being done, and the Church is leading the way in many spheres. That gives me hope.
I really enjoy a bike ride on our tandem with my wife. We started off doing long sponsored rides for charity, and now we just do it for pleasure.
I pray for families: my own, and those who live and work in our homes and housing.
If I was locked in a church, I’d choose to be with William Wilberforce. He was an Evangelical Christian who didn’t separate faith and social action. He wanted the gospel to transform people’s economic and social circumstances, as well as their spiritual lives. Social justice and the gospel are two sides of the same coin.
Stephen Hammersley was talking to Terence Handley MacMath.
The International Day of Older People is on 1 October. To mark it, this weekend’s Sunday Worship (BBC Radio 4) is a pre-recorded act of worship from Middlefields House.
pilgrimsfriend.org.uk