MORE than a 1,000 people have been helped by a befriending service set up to tackle loneliness and isolation of Barnsley's older people.

It is run by the Barnsley branch of the Royal Voluntary Service, based at Priory Campus, Lundwood, and covers the Central, Dodworth, Kingstone, Stairfoot and Worsbrough wards.

In the three years it has been running, a team of 82 volunteers has helped 1,051 people, making 5,922 home visits across the five wards and done more than 750 telephone befriending calls.

It is paid for by the Central Area Council and members of the area council were told on Monday how the service was so successful that a number of 'spin-offs' were set up including new, volunteer-led social and luncheon clubs for older people.

Graham Harris, from the Barnsley branch of RVS, said it is always looking for new volunteers and told the area council members about one of its more unusual recruits - Murphy the cat, owned by volunteer Susan Young from Darton.

Murphy, who is four-years-old, has probably got the best job of all the volunteers - he goes on visits with Susan, gets to lay on laps, be stroked and fed treats. Graham said: "Susan started visiting a lady and was talking about cats and the lady was saying how she would love to have a cat and Susan offered to take her cat to see her. That's how it started.

"When people move in to sheltered housing they can't have a pet. If they have had a cat or a dog all their lives it is a bit of a wrench to be on your own and Murphy is a bit of company.

"It's something that gives people a bit of comfort to sit and pet without having the feeding and cleaning up after it."

Susan, 61, of Broom Close, said the lady she visits, 89-year-old Jean Cobb who lives in sheltered housing near the town centre, has fallen in love with Murphy. "The first time I took him he walked up to Jean and started rubbing up against her and that is not his usual behaviour with strangers," said Susan.

"I put him on her lap and he settled straight away and started purring. I started to visit Jean last September, she was 88 and had just lost her husband. They had been together since she was 15. She had never been on her own.

"Jean had always had cats when she was younger and when she lived in her own house too but she's in a council flat now and can't have any pets. I think it means a lot for a cat lover to have that contact. They say stroking and purring is therapeutic and relaxing."

Murphy is just one of the service's success stories area council members were told about during a presentation by Graham summarising the work it has done over the past three years. They were told how the service had arranged social outings, provided 845 transport solutions, from arranging taxis and Dial a Ride services for shorter journeys to longer journeys to visit relatives in other parts of the country.

Graham said the furthest it had helped someone travel to visit family was to the Isle of Man. It has also arranged personal care and to mediate in family disputes, and dealt with issues such as medical appointments, financial problems and utility bills, as well as distributing 300 food hampers, 120 winter weather packs and 3,000 tins of soup.