COLLEGE students and staff in Barnet have ‘befriended’ older residents to help combat elderly loneliness as part of a national project.

Silver Line, a service similar to Child Line which provides elderly people with pen pals and people to chat to over the phone, has partnered with Barnet and Southgate College in Church Passage.

Staff and students have signed up to become letter and telephone 'be-frienders' with elderly people in the borough as part of a collaboration set to continue into May 2017.

Curriculum manager at Barnet and Southgate College Jane McFadden said: “We're proud Barnet and Southgate College is the very first educational establishment in the UK to be directly supporting Silver Line.

“We hope to provide a valuable source of communication for older people in our communities and I'm looking forward to writing the letters.”

Volunteers will be making regular weekly friendship calls to an elderly person assigned to them and taking part in Silver Letters, which is the exchange of regular letters between an older person and a volunteer from the College.

Silver Line was started by TV presenter Esther Rantzen in 2013.

She said: “Like child abuse, loneliness carries a stigma, especially for an older generation too proud to ask for help.

“I hope Silver Line will enable them to break through the stigma of loneliness and comfort and protect older people in need.”

More than half of all 75 year olds in the UK live alone and one in 10 suffers intense loneliness, but is reluctant to ask for help. 

In a poll by Silver Line in 2013 it was found that 9 out of 10 older people think a chat on the phone is the most helpful solution when they feel lonely, but 1 in 4 older people never or rarely have someone to chat to.

Silver Line is confidential, free and open any time every day of the year at 0800 4 70 80 90.