What does it feel like to be old and alone?

The charity Campaign to End Loneliness says that one million of us are already suffering from acute loneliness, while two and a half million over 60s fear they could end up similarly isolated.

(clock ticking)

Margaret: If you've never been lonely, you don't realize what it is like.

Roy: It feels as though you've been dumped in the deep end and there's nobody there to rescue you.

Margaret: Well, you go hours and hours, never speak to anybody.

Roy: I don't think you'll ever get used to it. It's always loneliness.

Speaker 3: How do you measure loneliness? When even trying to talk about it takes your breath away?

Margaret: The room's just empty.

Speaker 3: 91 year old Margaret Nicholas has lived in this house virtually her whole life.

First with her parents, then her husband and family.

2 years ago, her husband died. Now, it's just her.

Margaret: We used to do a big garden together.

We went shopping together.

Everything was done together.

Speaker 3: You obviously miss him.

Margaret: I do.

Speaker 3: Margaret's granddaughter takes her shopping and neighbors pop in to check she's okay.

But it's everyday company she misses.

Margaret: Some people would think me a bit odd but I do chatter to my husband.

I do it so I'm sort of speaking.

Roy: That's the wife with her cousin.

Speaker 3: Roy Croucher lives a short drive a way. He and Margaret have loneliness in common.

He lost his only son to cancer and then his wife of 50 years.

Roy: I'm always hoping that the wife will come through the door.

But she never will.

If you go out, you come back and you come back to an empty house.

It's loneliness again.

You're always waiting for somebody to call.

Speaker 3: Roy says he's lucky. A friend and her family see him most weeks.

But like Margaret, some days the only voice he'll hear is a call from the phone befriending service run by volunteers.

Roy: Judy rings up on a Saturday night.

Last Saturday, she was the first person I was spoke to all day.

Speaker 3: That's a long day.

Roy: It is a long day.

Speaker 3: How much difference has that made, that phone call that comes on Saturday night

when you haven't spoken to anyone else all day?

Roy: I look forward to it. Always put that phone on the seat, ready to pick it up.

That's a great help.

Speaker 3: The Campaign to End Loneliness says it should now be treated as a public health issue.

Identifying the most vulnerable is critical.

Then offering support to cope with the bewildering and painful reality of ending up alone.

Margaret: I've never been on my own ever before.

Speaker 3: Getting used to that has been hard.

Margaret: I don't think I'll ever get really used to it.

Roy: It's just something that is thrown at you.

You can't throw it back to anybody.

You got to just carry on.