A happy home for women in Britain

DW (English)

Welcome to Britain's first housing community for older women, where the youngest resident is just over 50 and the oldest is 94. Men are allowed to come — but just to visit.

Transcript

00:00 Heaven!

00:02 It is gorgeous.

00:03 Enjoying day-to-day life together,

00:05 Hedy Argent and Charlotte Balash love to meet up in their shared garden.

00:10 We all share this desire to be part of a community

00:16 and you know, especially when you get to my age,

00:18 I don't go walking out much anymore.

00:21 It's not for everybody but I think it's wonderful.

00:23 It's been wonderful for me.

00:25 There are 26 women over 50 living in New Ground co-housing in North London.

00:30 Each has her own apartment,

00:32 but there's always someone around in the communal lounge to chat with.

00:37 At 94, Hedy Argent is the oldest.

00:40 She joined 12 years ago after her partner passed away.

00:44 I didn't want certainly to move into any sort of residential facility.

00:51 And at the same time I realised that my daughters were going to worry about me

00:56 all the time being on my own.

00:59 And then I began to worry about my daughters worrying.

01:03 And I thought it was time to look around for some alternative way of living.

01:09 There must be something.

01:11 It took 18 years for this vision of a small housing estate to finally become a reality.

01:18 The founders had to fight against a lot of bureaucracy

01:22 and against the misconception that so many older people in one place

01:26 could overburden the social and care services.

01:30 By avoiding isolation and supporting each other,

01:35 I think we've probably, well definitely,

01:39 been less of a burden on social services

01:42 than we would have been if we'd each lived on our own.

01:47 Hedy Argent can easily pop over to visit her neighbour,

01:50 Hilary Vernon-Smith, an artist.

01:53 Hi Hilary.

01:56 Oh, Mimi is looking gorgeous today.

01:59 For both women, it's reassuring to know that someone is always around

02:03 in case they need any help.

02:05 Wow.

02:07 Look at you darling.

02:09 I think as I age, if I'm going to help out other people,

02:13 I think it's slightly easier to help women than it is to help my male friends.

02:19 And women are in much more need of housing as they get older than men.

02:26 Certainly in my generation, it was the women who usually lived longer than the men,

02:31 so were left on their own.

02:33 Men are certainly welcome, but only as visitors.

02:40 We have lots of male visitors. We have brothers, we have grandchildren,

02:45 you know, we have gardeners who are male.

02:48 So we have a lot of men around, but they cannot live here.

02:53 Living only with women is appealing to many.

02:58 Shirley Gorich is in her mid-sixties and recently applied for a room,

03:03 but there's a long waiting list.

03:05 She doesn't see the no-men rule as a problem.

03:09 If one gets involved with someone on a serious level,

03:13 then as in any relationship, you have that conversation.

03:16 Where shall we live?

03:18 The women are proud of the community they've built.

03:22 They're completely self-organised.

03:25 All decisions are made collectively, without hierarchies.

03:29 When there's 26 of you, you know,

03:35 sometimes it's hard to get everybody's opinion, it's hard to get consensus.

03:40 You can end up talking about very small things, actually,

03:44 very, what seem like kind of petty things.

03:47 They get magnified in community at times.

03:50 Even if it is occasionally difficult,

03:53 the women see themselves as pioneers

03:56 and hope that others will follow in their footsteps.

03:59 Community instead of boredom, support instead of isolation.

04:04 Each one of us is very different from everybody else, and that's great.

04:09 But we all share this desire to be part of a community,

04:14 to look out for each other without looking after each other.

04:19 This is precisely how friends Hedy Argent and Charlotte Balas want to live.

04:25 Self-determined and independent into old age.

04:29 Squashes!

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended