A Minister for Loneliness

In 2018 the UK became one of the first countries in the world to appoint a minister for loneliness. That says something. What was once woven into daily life - the neighbour at the gate, the shop where they knew your name - now needs a national intention to keep it alive.

Amble was started for one reason. Not to run errands, not to fill a rota. To put good company back into an older person's week. Loneliness is the problem we exist to solve, and it is worth spelling out how big the problem is.

A problem that reaches everyone

Loneliness is no longer a corner of life. In the latest official survey, 7% of adults in the UK said they feel lonely often or always - and the figure has sat there since 2018, after years of being lower. It reaches the young hardest of all: 16 to 24 year-olds were the loneliest age group, at 9%. Samaritans say roughly one in three people who call them are struggling with loneliness or isolation.

So this is not an older person's problem. It is everyone's. But it definitely lands differently in later life, and that is where we have chosen to stand.

Where it does the most damage

Half a million older people go at least five or six days a week without seeing or speaking to anyone at all. Two in five say television is their main company. Age UK expects 1.2 million people over 65 in England to say they often feel lonely by 2034.

It is not just sad. It is dangerous. A major review of the evidence found that loneliness raises the risk of dying early by 26% -a bigger effect than obesity.

Younger loneliness usually passes, because life keeps moving: the next job, the next flat, the friend of a friend. Later-life loneliness arrives when the routes close. A partner dies. The driving licence goes. Friends of forty years are gone or moved away, and nothing new is scheduled to replace them. It settles in, and it stays. Families see it from a long way off - a daughter in Edinburgh, a son in Sydney - and worry about it between phone calls.

What Amble does about it

We do not think the answer is a stranger doing a shift. It is a person who turns up, on purpose, with something to talk about.

• The match comes first. Companions are matched on shared interests, not just on who happens to be free. Someone who loves cricket, or gardening, or the war poets, deserves company who does too.

• Chosen, not listed. You see a curated shortlist, never a directory. I personally interview and select every companion, and I'd rather say no than send the wrong person.

• It starts with a conversation. Every family begins with a personal consultation, so we understand the person before we introduce anyone.

• You're kept in the picture. A warm summary after every visit, and after-care throughout.

• It's company, not care. Our companions bring conversation, company and time. Never medication, never a task list. That boundary is the whole point.

The minister was a good idea. But a minister cannot sit at anyone's kitchen table. Someone has to actually turn up. That is the job, and it is the only reason Amble exists.

If a parent, grandparent or old friend came to mind while you were reading this, I'd love to talk. Email hello@amblecompanions.com or call 0333 305 0644.