Reading Friends scheme sees Huddersfield college students bring joy to care home

• Ted Chamberlain met the students and residents taking part in the Reading Friends initiative in ScissettTwo generations have been forging unlikely friendships at a care home near Huddersfield through a scheme aimed at tackling loneliness among older people.A group of students from Shelley College have been spending regular time at nearby Scissett Mount Care Home, taking part in the Reading Friends initiative, where youngsters read and chat with residents. Research from Age UK says there more than two million over-75s in England live alone. More than a million older people say they go more than a month without speaking to a friend, neighbour or relative.

One of the students, Isabell Duncan-Hardwick, said: "They have got their stories, you have got your stories.

"It is really nice to talk because obviously you are younger and they are older but you are able to talk, you are able to have a conversation and just discuss different things that maybe you would not talk to someone your age about."Another student, Evie Hart, said: "I did not think it would be this open. I thought it might be a bit more closed off and they might not want to speak as much but they have all been very open. It has been nice. I have enjoyed it."Two of the care home residents, Diane Newton and Joan Skidmore, praised the students for their kindness and said the scheme was helping them have fun.

Diane said: "They [the students] are so sure of themselves - in a nice way. They look at you as if to say, 'Are you going to say? Or are you going to do?' and it made you want to talk."The care home's activity and wellbeing manager Sharon Wilczynski said the scheme had given the residents a "new lease of life".

"They are talking about things which to the children are almost history but for the residents it is their lives. It is what they lived," she said. "So it is the two generations interlocking."

Some students have started to visit their new friends in their spare time.Teacher Megi Currie said they got as much out of it as the residents.She said: "They value the older generations. They value each other. They are really keen to come and do a good thing. They saw that opportunity straight away that this is a lovely thing to do and they just jumped at it."They are so personable. They listen. They care. They are just everything that you need, rolled into one. And we are proud of that."

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