Befrienders Highland’s stalwart volunteers are a gilt-edged gift at Christmas
A friend of mine who is involved with the Befrienders organisation will hopefully have an enjoyable time at Christmas but on Wednesday will take time out for two important phone calls.
These will be to two men who are living alone in difficult circumstances in different parts of the Highlands. The calls will be pre-arranged, and if they weren't made it is highly likely they would have no contact with anyone at a time when people value engagement with nearest and dearest the most.
My friend is an old newspaper colleague I've known for 50 years, and earlier in his career I would have viewed his rumbustious character as being less than suitable for sensitive voluntary work of this kind. But times change. This week brings the annual uproarious milestone of "Mad Friday", but many of my vintage have had our share of festive madness and may well have mellowed with the passage of the years and decades. My volunteer friend is one of them.
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Over the years I've heard people who have been preparing for Christmas Day for weeks, if not months, say they will be so glad when it's all over. Which begs the question - tactfully unasked - why they've put so much effort into striving for festive perfection in the first place. These folk, perhaps whimsically, give the impression that rather than having to cope with a home invasion of hungry and thirsty relatives, they'd prefer just to have peace and quiet and spend it alone.
While I usually have a fairly low-key Christmas Day I've only once spent it starkly alone. And there's a heck of a difference between "low key" and "alone".
The younger relatives I usually spend time with were out of the country and I'd made no alternative arrangements. I hadn't given it any thought.
But even now, 10 years on, I can remember the uncomfortable sense of isolation which became more acute as the hours dragged by. I didn't expect to feel like that, but I did. Many people will feel a special magic in the air on Christmas Day, but it can also induce a strangely piercing sense of loneliness.
But we know many people will be alone next Wednesday. My friend will be doing his bit - as he has done since he joined Befrienders during Covid - to brighten up the day of men who have become very good friends. That is something he enjoys in itself but it is also an admirable voluntary contribution.
We are both now in our late 60s. I take interest in what he does for Befrienders and with due regard for confidentiality he keeps me appraised of his efforts. What is acknowledged in our conversations on the subject is that at a point upcoming we may be very grateful for some voluntary assistance ourselves, and we certainly won't be alone in making that consideration. The thirsty, youthful excesses of our own Mad Fridays in the 1970s at our first place of work seem a very long way away now.
Festive season volunteers - and volunteers at all times - deserve the highest praise. We would hope they feel a personal sense of wellbeing and reward for the efforts they put in all year round. They are worth their weight in gold in this hard-edged society, and are a gilt-edged gift at Christmas.
