Oliver & Gwen

93-year-old Oliver is The Link Visiting Scheme’s oldest volunteer! We linked him with Gwen, and they have found wonderful friendship together.

After his wife sadly passed away, Oliver found himself feeling quite lonely, and as though he was spending much of his time focusing on himself. He decided he’d like to make a change and start focusing on someone else for a while! We matched him with Gwen, who lives locally and shared similar interests.

Oliver and Gwen tend to spend the beginning of each meet up catching up on what’s been going on in their lives or about the news. And then because Gwen has a visual impairment which makes reading almost impossible, Oliver reads to her for 45 minutes or so. They’ve worked their way through quite a pile of novels now! He told us how much he enjoys their visits, and how he missed them during lockdown when they spoke over the telephone. He is looking forward to meeting her again when it’s safe to do so.

Oliver is a keen woodworker and has made over 300 chairs in his spare time. We were delighted to be given a little tour of his workshop, and the children’s chair he is currently working on.