Cinema helps beat social isolation

UNIQUE GATHERING FOR 'GOLDEN OLDIES'

- MAXINE DENTON

A COMMUNITY cinema in Plymouth aims to reduce feelings of loneliness and social isolation in older people. Since it was set up in 2017, Red Velvet Cinema has screened more than a 150 classics and provided a unique gathering of 'Golden Oldies' with a place to call their own.

It has been described by its participants as a place of 'fun'; of 'inclusion' and of providing a "lifeline".

Funded by the National Lottery's Reaching Communities Fund, the project is throwing opens its doors in a bid to show that despite being very small, and virtually unknown in Plymouth, it has made - and continues to make a profound difference to those that come.

Patrick Weir has been going to the Red Velvet Cinema, in Devonport, since the opening. Six birthday parties later and now aged 86, he has friends for the first time in in years.