Marian talks about living in sheltered housing and having the choice to be with others or by herself

Hello my name’s Marian, Jean Marian if I’m correct but I’m always known as Marian. This is a new venture so I’m not quite sure what I’m doing at the moment. I live in the McCarthy and Stone development, which is designed for older people, which I’m very happy with. There’s company if you wish, or you can be shut away in your own apartment. I find it suits me very well and it seems to suit a lot more people very well. We have a three course meal at lunch time, if you wish to have it, you don’t have to have it. So that’s very handy as well. And there’s always somebody to talk to if you feel you want someone to talk to. If you wander down into the lounge there’s usually someone around. Any sort of special event on television we quite often group together and watch those. So that’s all very nice. I find as a person on my own, I found that very good because I can have company when I wish, or I can shut myself away when I wish, so it works very well. I’m very happy there.

What do I think about this group? That’s a good question. Since I don’t really know these people yet, but they all look very nice, very friendly. So I feel very happy at the moment. No, it’s very nice to be able to come here when you have dementia. It’s a bit frightening, is dementia really, but we just have to get on with things. I’m enjoying my biscuit, yes, I have a biscuit which is very nice, it’s very large biscuit, but very enjoyable. And everybody here seems to be very friendly so that’s very nice. I’m looking forward to coming to further meetings in the future. [Applause].