Loneliness and isolation are issues that busy people hide from, turn a blind eye to, we shut the curtains, close the door. Ignore. We are too occupied with our own concerns. Most of us don’t know our neighbours these days, certainly those of us in busy urban locations, stacked in our flats or squashed in expensive, undersized houses. We tuck our humanity under the doormat as we scuttle past the front doors and windows in our street as we journey from home to work, work to home on a never-ending shuttle.

We know loneliness is out there all around us centre stage in the time-rich lives of people who are elderly and vulnerable. Loneliness hides behind closed doors controlling lives and triggers a raft of problems for those affected by isolation. We sometimes catch a glimpse behind the smiles and the keen hello’s that mask the reality lived. We also know that loneliness could find us one day too. It could be lurking ready to pounce, dormant in our present waiting for our futures. One day in our fractured society we too could be lonely, invisible or forgotten when the kids have gone and the job has finished and the clock goes a little slower.

Contact the Elderly is trying to do something about this debilitating issue and bring some company into lives that are hungry for contact and engagement with others. The charity is asking us to think about those around us and confront the growing issue of social isolation in the lives of many elderly people whose family networks have been torn apart by the realities of modern Britain. The issues that drive charities are often shaming of society. They need to pelt publics with emotion, twist heads to look at the issue(s) that they care so deeply about.

Excerpt taken from the book: ‘Not Lonely, Not forgotten, Photographed’' by Helen James, Photography Historian and Writer