A LIFE-SAVING friendship scheme which helps people across Maldon is set to extend after a £200,000 pledge from County Hall.

Grants have been awarded to services including Maldon based Action for Family Carers, Age UK Essex and Colchester Community Voluntary Services.

The cash injection will help up to 2,000 residents across the county who battle loneliness.

Widow Irene Richardson, of Heybridge, has praised the befriending services for changing her life after leg ulcers left her housebound for a year.

The 79-year-old former Post Office worker had finally started to build a busy social life as she learned to cope without her husband Bert, who died aged 69 in 2001.

But when leg ulcers left her chained to her sofa with nothing but her TV for company, she began to feel desperately lonely.

Eventually she was persuaded to go on a trip to see Cinderella, an excursion run by Colchester Community Voluntary Services.

She enjoyed herself so much that she organised a trip to Southend to see a Nat King Cole tribute act with ten of her friends using a CCVS minibus.

“My family are lovely and really look after me and do my shopping, but they only get two days off a week. When you’re stuck in a small home and not able to do anything but watch TV, it does get lonely,” she said.

“But Colchester Community Voluntary Services changed my life and I love going on the excursions because they pick me up right at my door.”