Broadcaster Esther Rantzen has warned that Covid-19 lockdowns are causing severe damage to mental and physical health, leaving vulnerable children and elderly people isolated across the United Kingdom.
Rantzen, who is involved with both the children's helpline Childline and older people's charity The Silver Line, said closing down society has stripped vulnerable groups of crucial protection, leading to increased domestic abuse and tragic loss of life.
As the country emerges from the pandemic and counts the cost in lives and livelihoods, Rantzen expressed hope that the widespread experience of isolation will create a lasting understanding of loneliness and encourage people to reach out to friends and family living alone.
Reflecting on Mother Teresa's description of loneliness as "the most terrible poverty of all," Rantzen described the personal stigma surrounding isolation. When Rantzen wrote about living alone for the first time at age 71 in 2011, a friend living on his own asked her: "How could you write like that, Esther? Haven't you got too much pride?"
Rantzen said it was humiliating to admit her front door had become a brick wall and that she felt reluctant to venture out alone. She noted that loneliness is as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and frequently leads to depression and anxiety.
"Why cook proper meals when you are eating alone? Who enjoys taking exercise on their own? Not me, certainly. We are sociable creatures and need the company of others," Rantzen said, pointing out that lockdown isolation has inflicted serious damage on national health.
Surge in child harm and domestic abuse
Official statistics reveal a sharp rise in serious incidents involving children during the first year of the pandemic. Local authority figures show that 20 per cent more children were harmed in England, while 20 per cent more babies were killed or seriously hurt.
Domestic abuse charity Refuge reported a 61 per cent increase in calls to its helpline during lockdown. Rantzen highlighted how closing schools and support networks deprived vulnerable children of their usual safe havens.
She cited the case of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, who was poisoned and beaten to death by his parents during lockdown, as a distressing reminder that shutting down society costs precious lives.
When the pandemic began, hundreds of young people contacted Childline reporting that they were trapped in unhappy and unsafe homes, with many expressing a desire to run away or stating their lives were not worth living.
The emotional toll intensified over Christmas, bringing a surge of contacts to Childline from lonely young people facing destroyed self-esteem. Rantzen recalled a young girl in care following abuse by her father, who was then abandoned by her mother and cut off from family, telling her: "Nobody likes me. You wouldn't like me if you knew me."
A Childline volunteer also received an email from a girl named Charlotte after passing her exams, reading: "I've passed my exams, I'm so happy. I'm sorry for bothering you at Childline, but I had to tell someone." Rantzen noted the tragedy that a helpline counsellor was the only person Charlotte could inform.
Isolation among older residents
Older residents have also suffered severe isolation, with The Silver Line receiving 30 per cent more calls at the start of lockdown. One caller in her 90s living alone told Rantzen with grim satisfaction: "Now everyone knows what my life has been like for years."
Isolation was nothing new to the caller, but pandemic restrictions caused further disruption as drop-in centres closed, carers fell ill, and care home residents were cut off from visitors, leaving families able to see relatives only through glass windows.
A friend told Rantzen how she missed her husband in a residential care home, saying: "I used to spend every evening there with him. We'd watch television together and do the crossword. I miss him terribly and I know he misses me." Rantzen added that lonely deaths in hospitals and care homes remain tragic to consider.
Calls for reform and Christmas support
Rantzen argued that the pandemic demonstrates the urgent need to value key workers and increase pay for carers. She stressed that while loneliness affects every age group and has no single cure, simple conversation remains the most effective way to alleviate it.
Over the Christmas holidays, Rantzen plans to speak on the phone with a dozen older Silver Line callers seeking to share memories, discuss feelings, or tell jokes. In previous years, callers included a man whose Christmas dinner was a tin of spaghetti after his carer failed to arrive with a turkey, and a woman who said Christmas was "just another day for her to get through."
Another caller returned home in tears after a brief family lunch, explaining: "And I found myself in tears." On Christmas Day evening, a caller named John told Rantzen: "to be 100 per cent honest, Esther, you are the only person I've spoken to at all." After their conversation, John said: "I feel like I've joined the human race."
Another caller explained she contacts the service because "it's so good to speak to someone who seems to care what I think." Rantzen noted that while people were often too busy in the "Old Normal," the pandemic has revived community spirit and inspired new volunteers across the UK.
Rantzen urged the public to maintain this empathy beyond the holiday season, emphasizing that loneliness affects people year-round. Childline (0800 1111) and The Silver Line (0800 4 70 80 90) remain open 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout Christmas and New Year.
