Anne, 73, from Plymouth, thought she had worked it out. She had bought a one-bedroom flat in an over-55s development, downsizing from a three-bedroom Victorian house whose stairs had become difficult to manage. The development had a guest suite, a spare room shared by all the flats in the block, bookable for £20 a night.
That seemed to solve the problem of her grandchildren coming to stay. Except it didn’t, not quite. Because the suite belonged to everyone, it had to be booked in advance, and it wasn’t always available, particularly in the school holidays, exactly when her daughter Kate was most likely to ask if the children could come.
“It breaks my heart that I now have to say, ‘Let me see if the guest room is free,’ instead of simply saying, ‘Come and stay,'” Anne told me. She could no longer say, “Of course, send them down Friday, Kate.” She had to check first. And because of that, she says, she sees her grandchildren less than she used to.
There was another loss, too. In the old house, the children had had a room that was theirs, with their own toys left out and their own drawings still on the wall. In the flat, they stay in a room that belongs to no one in particular, comfortable, but not theirs.
