Over-50s group provides a lifeline for older people

Crossing the road from Market Street towards Campsie, I stood beside two other men at the traffic lights, one adding vodka to a glass he had just half-filled with fizzy orange, the other staring studiously at a spot on the ground.

The green man appeared and our fated triumvirate crossed the road together. The man who had been furtively eyeballing the floor was first to reach the opposite curb, taking a left over Drumragh Avenue.

The man with the Fanta/vodka mix stopped to take a sip of his beverage midway through the crossing, at which point I lost sight of him.

Bemused by this early morning scene, I continued straight ahead across the street for my first ever visit to the Royal British Legion.

The occasion: A weekly meeting of Campsie Over-50s Retirement Club, otherwise known as The Tuesday Club.

Upon arrival, a wee woman with a smoker’s croak asked, “You looking to join?”

I replied, “I’m 27. Would I be eligible?”

As she hoked through her purse for change she said, “Oh aye, bit of young blood about the place sure,” then turned to somebody else and said something about steak pies.

A woman seated by the door was simultaneously collecting pound coins from new arrivals and stamping letters that contained Christmas draw tickets.

A small mountain of paper was slowly building beside her.

“Are you here to take the drumming?” she asked.

“Naw, I’m here with the paper,” I clarified.

“Yes, that’s right. Very good. I’m busy here at the minute, but wait a wee second and I’ll get some people to chat with you.”

As I sat on a chair looking around me, I tried to count the number of people in the place; a task doomed by my bad maths and the new people who kept pouring in.

Realising any attempt to come up with a tally was would result in such a nebulous approximation as to be pointless, I jotted in my notebook, “Any Omagh pub owner would be happy to get a crowd this big on a Saturday night.”

(I was later told by a woman called Vera that there was about 70 people in the mix.)

Around this point, Kenny Smith sat down beside me: A 74-year-old from Festival Park who only retired a couple of years ago from his job as a transport worker for the hospital.

“This winter fuel payment carry on is an absolute disgrace. There are a lot of people who will suffer because of it.

“I do neighbourhood watch in the Festival Park, which means I keep an eye on some of the older people,” said Kenny, who looks, behaves and thinks like a man much younger than he is.

“I know for a fact that many of them need help, but they’ll be too proud to ask for it. It’ll be important for people to look out for one another this winter,” said Kenny, before heading off to rejoin his wife, Bernadette.

Before Kenny’s seat could cool, another backside was upon it, one belonged to Vera Dundas – a 80-year-old lady who spelled her surname for me like a primary school teacher might teach a primary one pupil to write cat.

“I’ve been in St Julian’s Fold for about nine months. I used to live on the Old Mountfield Road, but I just couldn’t afford it anymore,” said Vera, who I was told had a knack for cutting to the chase.

She explained that her husband James passed away seven years ago, from which point it became increasingly hard to make ends meet.

“We used to get the winter fuel payments for the two of us.

“When James passed, I only had my own. Now I am not getting mine either. Anyway, that’s why I’m in the fold,” she said.

Around then, the bingo began: Vera’s sojourn was over, and she repaired to her seat beside her best friend, Maureen McFall.

I stood up to go in search of my next victim, but quickly found myself back in my seat.

“Interrupt the bingo and you’ll be out the door,” said one man.

“It’ll be the first and last mistake you ever make,” warned the woman beside him.

Bongos

After about 20 minutes, the bingo gave way to the bongos, as local drummer Aidan Dunphy lugged in a load of tall African drums.

Assuming, given the location, that there would a few snare and lambeg beaters among us, I was looking forward to seeing if their skills translated to bongo ability. Then I started chatting with Carol Monteith, and that was the end of that.

With her rose-gold glasses, colourful clothes and eye-catching jewellery, she had the look of a recently retired hairdresser.

As it turned out, she was a school cook for 42 years.

“When I started working in the kitchen, it was up in St Pat’s and St Bridgid’s. Then I went to Omagh Academy. That was hard work, but I loved it.

“We used to have to do everything from scratch. Every morning, you’d drag in eight stones bags of spuds, get them up in the rack, and start eyeing them. That wasn’t handy work. I’m not running down the ones who do it now, but half of them would run a mile quicker than do the kind of work we used to do,” laughed Carol.

We chatted for a while about this and that, then Carol said, “I first came here after my mother died of dementia. That left a terrible void in my life and my friends knew it, so they dragged me along, and I’ve never looked back.

“You know, sometimes my health doesn’t be great and I can’t come. For the most part though, I try not to miss. I’ve made friends here that I know will last a lifetime.”