‘I am not looking forward to this Christmas with my son gone’

Before their dinner plates had been cleared, the dancing queens and kings of the north inner city were scrambling for space on the small dance floor in the ballroom of the Bonnington Hotel in Dublin.

Folk in tinsel-toned tops and Santa hats sashayed and swayed to the music of Frank Sinatra and Neil Diamond, and the mood at the annual Friends of the Elderly Christmas dinner could scarcely have been more festive.

But while there was laughter and Santa hats and bauble earrings on display at almost every table, the happy Christmas party mood was also tinged with sadness.

Lottie Gannon from Cabra has been a regular at the Friends of the Elderly Club on Bolton Street for more than five years and goes for the socialising on Wednesdays and “calls the bingo numbers of a Friday”.

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While she was happy to be out for the afternoon Christmas dinner she was missing some very special people. “My husband died six years ago and I was alone for a long time after that. He was my best pal,” she said.

The 88-year-old Dubliner was married for 61 years after meeting her husband on a blind date. “A friend asked me to meet her uncle and I was like I’m not going out with an old fellah. I thought uncles were automatically old but he was only 24 and I was a bit younger. We went on our first date to the Bohemian Picture House in Phibsborough.”

They were married within months when he “was on the labour and I was working in the Williams & Woods chocolate factory on Kings Inn Street. We didn’t have a shilling but we had everything at the same time. He was the best of husbands.”

She was only starting to get over her best pal’s death when she lost her son late last year. “We buried him on Christmas Eve. This party is great and it is very important for everyone to be together but I am not looking forward to this Christmas with my son gone. I was only really getting over my husband being gone. I still set a place for him at the table.”

Tom Thompson from Dominic Street watched the singer belt out a version of It’s Not Unusual. He will be spending Christmas alone this year after losing his wife on New Year’s Eve 2021. “I’ve some great neighbours and great support around me and that’s really important,” he said.

“I worked in the area of mental health and know how social isolation is such a big problem. I also know what social isolation is like. Sometimes it’s just a simple case of knocking on the door and saying to somebody that we’re here and we care.”

Bernie Curran from Friends of the Elderly said reducing social isolation had become more important in a post-Covid world. “After the lockdowns people want to get out and socialise but I think public transport can be very daunting. There are just so many crowds,” she said.

Another big challenge this Christmas will be keeping people warm, she believes. “A lot of our staff are visiting older people’s homes and they aren’t putting on the heat, homes are cold and damp because people are so worried about bills they’ll get in the spring.”

Sitting at a table close to the dance floor was Anne Davis from the Navan Road. “Most people here are widows or widowers and don’t go out socialising. There is so much depression out there and people can be so isolated, that is why this dinner is so important.”

Christy Gorman watches closely. He is the leader of a Friends of the Elderly resident band which sometimes call themselves the Old Boyzone. “I’ve been playing in the Friends of the Elderly club for 16 years. There are people who come just for the music, people love to dance. I love playing for them, some of the band have died, others have left but I try to keep it going, sure what else can you do?”