Joyce Vincent, a 40 year-old woman was discovered dead in a tiny flat in North London this week. Nothing so odd about that, except that her flat was full of unopened post, some of which was postmarked November 2003. She had lain dead for over three years and those friends and relatives who sent her the Christmas cards she would never open never bothered to pick up the phone or pop around to see whether she was all right.
The details of this sad little story are here: www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4906992.stm
I think, like many people of around Joyce's age, I haven't been able to shake her out of my mind since I read about her on Wednesday.
Who were these friends who were keen enough to send her cards, but then for over two years made no further contact with her? Perhaps there were repeat cards, perhaps printed out with no "Dear Joyce" at the top, but only a scribbled "love from..." at the bottom, the sender near the end (V being where it is in the alphabet...) of a long computer-generated list of recipients. Or maybe when they didn't receive her card, they took umbrage and she was summarily deleted from the list.
There were presents in her flat, unopened. Maybe from her to others or from others to her, but no-one followed up on them. Whatever else this says, it shows that Joyce had not withdrawn herself from the world totally. Or at any rate, not by choice.
When other residents of the block she lived in were told of what had happened, they expressed sadness but no surprise, making mention of the fact that 'people here keep themselves to themselves'. The TV and heating had been on the whole time. The drone of a single channel for over two years hadn't been noticed. And as for the heating, well, there had been mutterings about unpleasant smells, but no one had been sufficiently disturbned to investigate.
In the end the only people who had enough interest to open the door and discover Joyce's skeletal remains were the housing association landlords who wanted to repossess the flat because of the thousands of pounds of rent arrears. Which just emphasises what is demonstrably true in single urban life, that money is, in the end, all that matters.
We're used to stories of old people dying in solitude, neglected by their relatives, and we tut and say 'isn't it dreadful', but, unfortunately, you can understand it happening. And so a lot of people actively look out for old people in their area. My very elderly neighbours have just moved into a home, but prior to that I would pop around in cold weather, or if I hadn't seen them for a few days. I knew that they were cared for - their son used to organise their weekly grocery delivery from 200 miles away and the driver was an informal carer, checking on them weekly, carrying their bags in and having a quick look around to make sure everything was as it should be. Once a week they would be driven to church. They were part of the community. But you know what? I'd never think to check on my single, working-age neighbours. And it is they who are NOT part of the community round here. The community which is woven of the schools and the churches and the other common bonds shared by families and congregations. We all assume that the singletons have a busy social life and no one wants to intrude.
But symptomatic of the modern malaise is that now we send cards to people once a year and claim a relationship with them. We can, after a hard day's work, collapse in front of the TV or the computer screen and put the answerphone on and retreat from society. I have 'friends' I haven't seen or spoken to in two years or more. I'm sure I'm not alone. Today I'm going to call them up.
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