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Glasgow pensioner, 94, too scared to leave flat during lockdown didn’t eat for FIVE days before charity rescue

A 94-YEAR-OLD pensioner who hadn't eaten for days because she was scared to leave her home during lockdown has been rescued by charity workers.

The woman, from Glasgow, had no one to shop for her and stayed in her top floor flat starving until volunteers from the Salvation Army found her.

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The charity workers, along with housing officers, had been checking up on people in the Govan area when they knocked on the OAP's door on March 23.

They were able to give the 94-year-old, who we are not naming, hot soup and a food parcel as part of the Salvation Army and Govan Housing Association's mobile food support project.

Tracy Bearcroft, of the Govan Salvation Army, told the Guardian: "She had no one to get anything for her and she was too frightened to go out.

"At first it was very scary for a lot of old folk, who didn't want to go out because they thought they would catch [coronavirus] immediately and have to go to hospital."

Bearcroft, who runs the mobile food project with her husband, Mark, said demand had skyrocketed in recent weeks, and they were providing 100 hot meals every day and 140 food packs a week.

She added: "People don't really want to come [for charity food] but they don't really have an option because they have got kids and they don't have enough food to see them out for the week."

The Salvation Army has revealed that it saw a 63 per cent rise in households receiving food parcels from its 665 UK centres between February and April.

The charity warned that the pandemic has pushed the country to a "poverty tipping point" - with low-income households struggling with reduced income because of furlough or job losses.