EXCLUSIVE: As Britain prepares to celebrate VE Day a decorated WW2 veteran has been forced to sell his house and the cost of care is rapidly consuming his life savings, leaving him feeling abandoned, lonely and forgotten.
Bomber Command hero Ivor, 99, spends £5,000 a month on care home fees in Plymouth, D (Image: Rowan Griffiths / Daily Express)
A veteran forced to pay £5,000-a-month in care homes says he feels betrayed and forgotten.
Hero Ivor Foster, 99, was part of the elite Bomber Command unit that helped destroy Germany’s military might at the height of the Second World War.
One of our last remaining wartime RAF legends has spent £180,000 on fees after selling his modest home.
But with money running out the widowed braveheart, who turns 100 in August, is left wondering how a lifetime of selfless service ever came to this.
Proud Ivor said: ”I am overjoyed fellow vets take the time to visit me. It means the world. The Bomber Boys were forgotten for decades and some might want to move on but we should never forget the enormous sacrifices so many made during the mighty war effort. I played my part but so many of my comrades were not as lucky as me.”
Ivor was 18 when he joined 186 Squadron as a gunner in a Lancaster crew that rained bombs down on Nazi-occupied Europe.
The air ace – known as Blondie to his chums – was one of 125,000 airmen who flew with the unit during the war. He was one of the lucky ones – 55,573 of his colleagues were killed in action.
But today the decorated hero lives a lonely existence in Devon. His life savings have gone and he is now using the proceeds from the sale of his modest bungalow and pension to finance growing care fees.
RAF legend Ivor, 99, is looked after by daughter-in-law Lynn (Image: Rowan Griffiths / Daily Express)
His daughter-in-law Lynn, 69, said: “His money is not going to last much longer. This is no way to treat our heroes. He feels no-one cares what he did for this country and that people have just forgotten. He feels badly let down.”
Ivor was married to sweetheart Bernice for 65-years before her death in 2012. He lost both his sons to cancer, Brian aged 52 in 2003, and Steven, Lynn’s husband, aged 64 in 2020.
He is a resident at The Retreat, a care home in Plymstock, where he is doted on by “wonderful and attentive staff”, but spends his days watching TV and looking out of the window wondering why vets like him have been all but forgotten. The painful reality comes as Britain gears up to celebrate VE Day on May 8 which marks the 80th anniversary of the Second World War in Europe.
Ivor is visited by a handful of ex-military mates, including Gulf War veteran Keith Sales, 69, who served 24-years in the Royal Navy, and vets from the Royal Navy Gunners Association, who answered an SOS to keep him company.
He said: “The upcoming VE Day anniversary is an opportunity to raise the question, do we really mean ‘we owe a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid?’
“For me and many others the sentence should be finished with ‘so we will not bother’.
“Our Second World War veterans increasingly find themselves in homes paying for their own care. These heroes should not be paying for their care. We owe them so much and it is terrible to think so many, like Ivor, are sitting thinking no one remembers them. It’s heartbreaking to think they are looking out of windows thinking no one cares.”
Band of brothers: Ivor is visited by Keith Sales [L] and Steve Lewis (Image: Rowan Griffiths / Daily Express)
Ivor’s plight is typical of a growing nationwide care crisis with one in seven homes now charging self-funding residents more £1,800 a week with fees set to rise again this month, typically by 10%.
It means tens of thousands will see charges increase to almost £2,000 a week, or £104,000 a year.
There are 16,566 care homes in the UK, including residential and nursing homes. It means 2,366 are charg ing almost three times the national UK salary of £37,430.
The eye-watering costs are blamed on a rise in the number of dementia cases and the imminent increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions.
The chaos comes as social care reform is delayed until 2028, meaning families will continue to be forced to flog family silver to cover rising costs.
LaingBuisson’s Care Homes for Older People UK Market Report – the Bible of nursing and residential care home services across the UK – said: “The annualised value of care in residential settings across the UK is estimated at £26.2 billion at December 2024, having dipped to an annualised £17.4 billion in March 2021. The substantial recent growth in market size (40% in a period of four years and nine months) is very largely due to fee inflation, which has in turn been driven by cost inflation from National Living Wage uplifts.”
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Ivor [top right] pictured in 1945 was known as Blondie to his wartime chums (Image: Rowan Griffiths / Daily Express)
The chance of seeing the war out was 500-1 against if you were part of Bomber Command. Each man tried to make it to 30 operations, but most didn’t.
A stunning memorial, cast from Portland stone, now stands in London’s Green Park as a lasting tribute to Ivor’s comrades who fell serving with the elite unit. It was made possible thanks in part to generous donations from Express readers and was opened by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2012, her Diamond Jubilee year.
South West Devon MP Rebecca Smith said: “Ivor Foster, one of the few remaining Second World War pilots from RAF Bomber Command, is paying through the nose for his care.
“Churchill famously said of RAF pilots that ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’. If those words hold true today, why, you might ask, is one of ‘The Few’ being ripped off in his old age?
“Ivor is a South West Devon constituent; I met with him at his care home in Plymstock to offer my full support as his MP.
“Unfortunately, I have been passed around the Civil Service merry-go-round. I have gone to the Ministry of Defence, Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Work and Pensions to seek support for Ivor and am now on my fourth department, HM Revenue and Customs – it beggars belief.
“I’m hoping the Government will finally come up with an answer soon. It would be good to get some positive news before the VE Day 80th anniversary.”
The hero is now living out his days in a care home in Plymstock, Devon (Image: Rowan Griffiths / Daily Express)
‘Old age is a dire outlook for people with modest assets’
The social care scandal means consumers are hit hardest as prices are rising (Image: Age UK)
Most people who need social care have to pay for some or all of it themselves, so the current rise in inflation and cost of living crisis means they are facing even higher bills, draining their savings faster than ever before.
This isn’t the fault of care homes or care providers because most of their costs have risen, including their wage bills, meaning they generally have no choice but to pass these increases on.
The way social care works at the moment means that it is the consumer who is hit hardest when prices are rising quickly. Meanwhile, all the evidence is that the chances of obtaining State funded care are certainly not getting any better and, in fact, are probably getting worse. This all adds up to a dire outlook for older people with modest assets, who need social care and have to shoulder the very considerable cost of it themselves.
In this context it is likely that the numbers whose savings are completely erased by their care bills will grow. Those who had no assets in the first place are in no better a position, thrown back on the residual safety net provided by the State, which is not funded well enough to provide everyone who needs it with good local care.
Baroness Casey’s Commission on Social Care should be getting underway within the month, and ensuring that everyone who needs a good quality, affordable care service can get one needs to be high on her to do list.
Caroline Abrahams is Charity Director at Age UK
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