Rita Young
Retiring abroad isn’t only for people who want to spend their later years having a hard-earned break in the sun. For thousands of pensioners, frozen pensions mean a heartbreaking choice between family and making ends meet.
Rita Young, 78, lives in Peterborough in the UK. She retired in 2002, aged 67, having enjoyed a long career in market research and as a community volunteer, she now finds day-to-day life increasingly difficult, because she doesn’t have family around who she can call on.
Rita’s son moved to work in Australia some time ago and now has a family there. Since being widowed Rita has wanted to join her son and grandchildren in Australia, but has felt unable to do so due to the prospect of a frozen pension. As she gets older Rita finds daily life increasingly difficult, especially as she doesn’t have a family around who she can call on. She is deeply saddened that she is not able to be with her family during the later stages of her life, and feels that it is a complete injustice that had her son moved to a different country (e.g. France or the USA) she would be able join him with a full UK pension. Rita has spoken at the National Pensioners Convention about the issue and is very active in her community.
Until this unfair policy is reversed, Rita has to make do with weekly Skype calls to her family, but as any grandparent would understand it’s no consolation for good night hugs and cups of tea in the kitchen.
“I worked and contributed to my State Pension all my life. It doesn’t seem fair that the government can just stop uprating it because I want to be with my family”.