Meet our new Telefriending Coordinator: Keith

Hello, I’m Keith Paterson (he/his) and since the end of February, I have been LGBT Health Telefriending Coordinator, which is our project for the over 50’s. It was set up to reach community members who may be feeling isolated. They receive a monthly check-in phone call from one of our team. It has been very successful and the team have made regular contact with many members of our community, which has been particularly important during lockdown.

I started volunteering in the 1980’s for what was then Edinburgh Gay Switchboard based in the Gay Centre in Broughton Street in Edinburgh. I also worked for Gay Scotland Magazine. For a time, I ran the Training programme for Switchboard, which saw an expansion of services.

If any of you watched Channel 4’s It’s A Sin, that is an era I relate to very much – friendships forged, the music, the bars and clubs and sadly friends lost.

My main career was working for a bookshop company, who eventually had shops all over the UK. Travelling for work made regular volunteering more difficult but I have always stayed involved in our community. Laterally I have run my own business selling theatrical memorabilia and at the same time had a B and B, which was a great opportunity to meet people from all over the world.

My main interests out of work are theatre, music (now classical music, which I came to late in life), photography, and my lockdown pursuit has been Lego, which is a lot more expensive and complicated than in the 1960’s when it was my favourite pocket money toy.

There is a growing need to provide services to match the requirements of the older members of our community and I am very much looking forward to expanding and developing our Age Telefriending Project.