Ref. 29519-3WRVS FEATURE: JOAN Jarrett knows she is lucky. She has a son and a daughter living not far away from her Highworth home.

But even she knows what it is like to go for hours on end without human contact.

Both her children work long hours and have little time to spare for their own home lives. So although they do their best to visit her or take her out at weekends, she relies for the most part on the occasional visit from a friend to go out shopping.

Luckily for Mrs Jarrett, 82, her family make an effort to be around for her in spite of their busy lives. But it is a different story for many elderly people whose families have either died or moved away.

Sometimes she goes for several days without seeing another soul and can understand how isolation can easily develop. Which is why she appreciates the WRVS' home library service so much.

Every three weeks volunteer Sylvia Kendall arrives with an armful of books for Mrs Jarrett and the chance to have a face-to-face gossip a luxury some elderly folk in the town go without.

"I am so grateful to them, they are a great, great help," she said. "I used to go to the library and pick up books and carry them back home. I could only manage two or three at a time and that was when I was fit before my stroke."

She suffered a mini stroke last year and even though she recovered the use of her legs and one of her arms she found her strength was greatly reduced. Only able to walk short distances, she realised her regular visits to the library were over.

It was then that Mrs Kendall came into her life. She volunteered for the service when she retired from her part time post in administration at the research councils in 2002.

A widow like Mrs Jarrett, she had time on her hands and a need to feel useful.

"It is a great sense of giving something back to the community. It is also a way of getting me out of the house. When I retired I thought I would be bored, but I'm not.

"I just enjoy life and it is a great way of keeping me occupied," said Mrs Kendall, 61.

She devotes a few hours every three weeks to her 'round' of half-a-dozen clients and gets to know each of them well. She sees how much her regular visits mean to them and although she too has family living relatively close she can appreciate how older people can easily become cut off from the rest of society.

"These days there is not such a sense of community about areas because people have to work. At the moment I am a fairly active person but you don't know what is around the corner. I might need this service myself in a few years and it would be nice to know that someone out there cares."