After her husband Ivan was diagnosed with cancer, Isabelle Poole said the couple struggled financially, and they had to use food banks to get by.
When Ivan became really ill with cancer, he couldn’t work and at the time, he was the sole breadwinner as I could no longer work after a work accident,” recalled Isabelle, now 68.
“I was horrified that we had no choice but to go to food banks. I never told any of the children, as I felt so ashamed – they had families of their own and I didn’t want them to worry. They do an amazing job but I was proud, had worked all my life and always paid my way.”
When Ivan sadly died of liver cancer in October 2020 at the age of 66, Isabelle not only had to contend with the overwhelming grief, but she also found herself struggling to even meet the funeral costs.
If Isabelle had received her state pension at the age of 60, as she had previously anticipated, she says this would have helped relieve some of the financial burden.
She is one of an estimated 3.8 million Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) women affected by major changes to the state pension age.
Isabelle, who lives in Nottinghamshire and is now remarried to Neil, says she was 61 when Ivan died and at the time, she had only recently discovered that she would have to wait until the age of 66 to receive her state pension.
Isabelle told The i Paper: “Having been able to get my pension at 60 would have got me through some very hard and difficult times.
“I never received a letter telling me that my state pension age was changing. I only found out through friends and we were all shocked and stunned about it.
“My life would have been very different if I had received my pension at 60. Even if I had got a warning, at least you can prepare for it. But no one ever told me and it massively impacted my life.”
Isabelle with her husband Ivan when he was dying of cancerWaspi campaigners say women born between 1950 and 1960 were not given adequate notice about the increase in their pension age.
A report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman recommended compensation in March 2024, estimating that between £1,000 and £2,950 could be paid to women affected by the lack of warning over the change to the state pension age.
The Government refused compensation, and in November, it once again refused to compensate Waspi women for failures to properly communicate a rise in the state pension age.
However, campaigners are now preparing to launch a fresh legal challenge that could see the Government forced back to court to defend its decision not to compensate millions of 1950s-born women.
Isabelle said that she was with her first husband, Ivan, for 36 years and they had four children together.
The couple spent more than 25 years working in the pub trade, initially as managers and then with tenancies of their own. However, the hard work and long hours took their toll and after Ivan suffered two mini strokes, they came out of the trade and had a change of lifestyle.
Isabelle said: “Ivan began delivering for a supermarket and then he went into taxi driving. I got a job in a bakery which was a lot of hard work and shifts, but I was enjoying it.”
It was while Isabelle was working at the bakery that she suffered an accident. As she reached for some bread from the warehouse, she lost her footing and landed on her back on metal trimming at the end of the shelving.
“I was screaming in pain. Luckily, one of the lads found me. I couldn’t sit down and the pain just got worse.”
A work accident meant Isabelle could no longer work and she is currently on a waiting list for a third back operationIsabelle tried working as a dinner lady after that, but could not stand or sit for long in the cold weather, so she had to give it up. She had two spinal operations, is currently on the waiting list for a third surgery and is on morphine patches and painkillers.
This meant when Ivan got unwell, they were in a financially precarious position and, after he died, Isabelle says she was in a “very bad place,” consumed with grief. To add to her troubles, she could not even afford the cost of the funeral.
“Financially, I was in a mess as everything had to go to the funeral. I managed to get help from a trust for one of the breweries we used to work for.
“They gave money towards the funeral and the children helped where they could. But I felt obligated to pay them back because they had families and were all shattered by Ivan’s death, too.”
Isabelle was renting her home with Ivan but found it too difficult to go back there without him. She stayed with her daughter for a few months and then got a flat of her own.
She met Neil, a widower, at the end of 2021 through a friend who lives in Spain, as he had been living out there for many years. They married in April 2022 and now rent a bungalow together.
Isabelle said: “Suddenly finding out I wouldn’t get my pension at 60 put a lot of pressure and upset on my life. This made me feel insecure and left out to dry. I felt lost and abandoned and struggling with diabetes and other health problems didn’t help.
“I feel very let down by the way us 1950s women have been treated. It is unfair and unjust. We have been robbed and to me, there’s no other word for it.”
Angela Madden, chair of the Waspi campaign, said: “Isabelle’s story lays bare the real human cost of the way 1950s-born women have been treated.
“Behind every statistic is a woman like this, facing ill health, family hardship and financial insecurity at the very moment she should have been able to rely on the pension she had earned.
“No one should be pushed towards food banks or left feeling abandoned after a lifetime of contribution.
“After a six-year investigation, the Government’s own watchdog found that Waspi women suffered injustice and harm. Ministers must accept those findings and engage seriously in delivering a fair resolution.
“Waspi women are not asking for special treatment; we are asking for justice. The Government must stop ignoring the lived experience of these women and finally engage in finding a fair and proper resolution.”
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