The childfree communities looking after number one

As increasing numbers of us can't or won't have children, Helen Coffey talks to this rapidly growing demographic now planning their lives – and deaths – without a nuclear family

- Helen Coffey

“I live alone - I have no family, it’s just me – and I have nightmares about dying at home unexpectedly and nobody finding me for four years! That scares me.

..” Some of the other members of tonight’s meeting nod sombrely at these words – the woman speaking is far from alone in this primal fear.

Her comment has followed a lively discussion about what happens if you drop dead in the street – specifically, whether the police will be able to identify you if there are no family members to do it. “I think it would be so easy if we all had our NHS numbers tattooed on us,” another woman muses, and the group laughs along at the thought. Someone else offers a more commonsense approach: she preemptively wears an “SOS” locket bracelet containing her name, national insurance number and contact details for her trusted solicitor, who has access to her funeral plan and will.

This exchange is typical of an Ageing Without Children (Awoc) meeting - a safe space that enables the voicing of serious anxieties mixed in with a good dose of humour and real-world advice. First set up in 2014, the charity has three main aims: to create peer-led groups of people who are facing old age without children to provide care or advocate for them; to offer practical information for these communities; and to lobby government, both locally and nationally, to factor this ever-growing demographic into health and social care planning.