Icelanders dig deep to keep UK pensioners warm

Fundraising | Tania Mason | 26 Feb 2009

The National Pensioners' Convention is this week distributing hundreds of blankets and woolly jumpers donated to elderly Britons by the people of Iceland after a radio appeal.

On Monday, the same day that Iceland's coalition government resigned in the wake of its banking fiasco and noisy protests continued outside the Reykjavic parliament, a shipload of woollen garments arrived in Grimsby destined for UK pensioners suffering from the chilly winter temperatures.

The citizens of Iceland rallied to the cause after a popular morning radio programme broadcast a warning from the National Pensioners' Convention (NPC) that up to one in 12 old people in Britain could die from the cold this winter.

The four-day charitable appeal, called ‘Icelandic Wool to England', prompted Icelanders from all corners of the country to collect warm clothes and deliver them to the station. A freight company offered to ship the garments here in a 20ft container and other businesses provided packing materials.

‘Shocking indictment on UK government'

Neil Duncan-Jordan, a spokesman for NPC, described the Icelanders' actions as a "fantastic and generous act of compassion" but said it was also a "shocking indictment of the UK government's complete inability to properly tackle the problem of winter deaths amongst older people".

"In the last decade we have lost 260,000 pensioners during the winter months and the response from Whitehall has been a deafening silence. We hope this act of kindness will shame the governmetn into raising the state pension and the winter fuel allowance."

Who's Who: Tania Mason

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