“We’ve had two bad winters, and luckily we’ve got through it,” Godfrey Ward tells me, “but I don’t think we’ll survive another one.”
Godfrey, 77, and his wife Jeanette Ward, 69, have worked hard all their lives to afford their own home in Wigan.
Now retired, their combined weekly pensions cannot stretch to cover the rising cost of bills and the urgent repairs they need in their home.
Their old boiler is broken and beyond repair so they’ve had no hot water or heating for months.
“It’d cost about £2,000 for a new one,” Jeanette says, “and we can’t afford that.”
“So we don’t have heating, apart from an electric fan heater in one room.”
More on Cost Of Living
-
Cost of living: Conservative MP says people could ‘incentivise granny annexes’ to save money
-
Cost of living: Bank of England governor warns of ‘apocalyptic’ food prices due to war in Ukraine
-
Martin Lewis apologises for calling Ofgem a ‘f***ing disgrace’ over energy price cap proposals
Related Topics:
The couple has to travel to the house of a nearby relative to get a hot shower but Jeanette says they “don’t like to trouble them” by going too often.
“Money is the thing,” Godfrey stresses, “and I don’t like to ask for anything. If I cannot afford it, I don’t get it”.
“But in the back of my mind, I keep on thinking that if we don’t get help it’ll end up being a care home for us both. But we don’t want that.”
Jeanette shakes her head, hearing her husband say this.
“No,” she says, “no, we don’t want that. We want to stay in our own home, and we couldn’t afford it anyway.”
But as energy prices, food bills and inflation rise, a future in the house where they’ve lived for years, is getting harder to imagine.
Jeanette has asthma and believes living in a cold house over winter contributed to her getting pneumonia twice this year.
She says she feels “bitter” and “angry” that after a life of work, the couple now find themselves struggling.
A nearby weekly lunch club, run by Age UK, is at least a guaranteed hot meal in a warm room.
“We’ll have this soup and sandwich,” Godfrey tells us, “and then just something small for our tea – something from the chippy or a pie.”
“But even the price of a pie has gone up to £2.50, or more,” Jeannette adds.
“We’re just about coping,” she says, “but it’s not easy”.
Sarah Shannon, Deputy Executive, Age UK Wigan Borough says their staff are “run off their feet” with the surge in calls for help.
Cost of living: Kay Burley’s road back to Wigan Pier
“These groups are important for so many reasons: it gets people out of the house, they don’t have to have their heating on, they get a nice meal but it’s also the social element, that they get to see people and meet friends.
“Because if you are worried about the cost of going out and things you might not see people and then suffer from loneliness as well, so that just compounds the problem.”
- Will restaurants survive winter with new loans from U.S. government?
- ICU bed crisis escalates as California stumbles through relentless winter surge
- Having the vaccine doesn't mean vulnerable pensioners can act with 'wild abandon and go off to the bingo halls' says Deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam
- 2020 The Year of Covid19 – 2021 The Year of Anti-Tory Struggle & Freedom
- Chris Whitty warns hospitals are facing 'the worst crisis in living memory' as Covid cases soar - with 46,000 staff now off sick meaning routine operations are being delayed by up to a YEAR
- Small businesses worldwide fight for survival amid pandemic
- How to check you’re not missing out on grants and benefits worth thousands of pounds if you’re struggling
- How much should it cost to repair a boiler? And do you qualify for a FREE one?
- Cancer crisis hits hospitals: Fears for patients and heart victims as doctors are forced to axe urgent surgery amid Covid-19 surge
- Secondary school re-opening 'WILL be delayed by at least an extra week but primaries will open on schedule' amid fears of coronavirus spike caused by mutant strain that can spread more easily among children
- On the frontline of the coronavirus crisis: Intensive care nurses and doctors battle to save Covid patients as it is warned London’s hospitals could be overwhelmed in two weeks
- How to survive until payday in January from making extra cash to getting help paying bills
- 'Anyone who doesn't wear their mask – they have blood on their hands': Intensive care doctor blames 'badly behaved' public for Covid hospitals crisis after UK suffered deadliest day since April with 981 deaths
- Coronavirus live updates: Southern California hospitals ‘in crisis,’ state health leader says
- COVID-19: What a winter lockdown means for mental health - and tips for coping
- The village that proves you can live without plastic: JANE FRYER reports from an isolated coastal community that has scrapped plastic pintas, straws, cutlery and sauce sachets
- Teachers and key workers 'will be added to priority list when Oxford vaccine is approved' but SAGE expert warns even a million jabs a week WON'T curb Covid crisis by February
- 14 big changes to wages, tax rules, benefits, pensions, and more coming in 2021
- Place where angels fear to tread
- The everyday struggle to find work
Cost of living crisis: Struggling pensioners in Wigan fear they won't survive another winter have 935 words, post on news.sky.com at May 17, 2022. This is cached page on Europe Breaking News. If you want remove this page, please contact us.