A novel way to beat loneliness in retirement

The Older Women’s Co-Housing (OWCH) project is building a community to look out for one another – not after one another.

"We're not a bunch of hippies," a member of the Older Women's Co-Housing (OWCH) project told the Telegraph Magazine's Sally Williams. Nor are they "man-haters". Whoever would have thought they were? But what they are is a group of 26 women aged between 50 and 86 who have come together to build, literally, a unique retirement community in High Barnet, north London, for older women to "look out for each other, not after each other", says Maria Brenton, 70, a group member and former academic.

They've done so because women are the ones often left behind in our society, they say. This is true in a literal sense. "Women live longer than men," notes Brenton. But it's also true in the sense that "many have fewer resources because they've been cut out of the workforce bringing up children". That obviously makes it harder to get by when the male partner dies.

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