Analysis: The gales were the final blow. Ray Nichols sat in her semi-detached house on the shores of the Firth of Clyde and listened as the winds battered and twisted her home�s ageing steel-framed windows.
The gales were the final blow. Ray Nichols sat in her semi-detached house on the shores of the Firth of Clyde and listened as the winds battered and twisted her home's ageing steel-framed windows.
"They were completely buckled," the 66-year-old widow from Helensburgh said yesterday. "I had a choice. It was a case of either selling the house or replacing the windows. And I didn't want to move. I had been here since 1966."
Mrs Nichols did the only thing she could to stay in her house: took out a home loan, years after her original mortgage was settled.
She is far from alone. New research published today by Scottish Widows, the insurance and investment firm, found that one in five retirees were still paying their mortgages. Difficult to manage with no income.
"I will be 67 in October and I don't finish paying this mortgage until I am 71," Mrs Nichols said. " I would have been paid up and mortgage-free if it wasn't for the house repairs I needed to do."
Charities believe the relentless rise in "grey debt" is already driving the elderly, even middle-class homeowners, into hidden and unspoken poverty.
For many, of course, the last few years of mortgage payments may just mean a retirement a little less comfortable than they hoped. Few, however, are prepared to admit they still don't own their own homes as they draw their pension.
Scottish Widows, in its 2007 UK Pensions Report, found 1.1 million retired homeowners still had an outstanding mortgage, one in five of the total number. Their average debt was £38,000. One in eight owed more than £50,000.
The retired are also increasingly likely to keep up borrowing on their credit cards. Almost one in three have carried over short-term debts for each of the last three months.
Their average outstanding balance on cards and personal loans is £5900. So how big is the grey debt now? Scottish Widows reckon pensioners owe £57bn and believe that figure is going to rise.
The squeeze on pensioners, especially younger retirees, is even bigger than mortgages alone. Scottish Widows also found that one in 12 pensioners are still keeping at least one of their children.
Almost 700,000 of them had financially-dependent offspring. Fully 16% of the "children" living off pensioners were over 35, the "Sorry" Generation highlighted by Ronnie Corbett in the 1980s sitcom.
The real worry, for charities is the generation of Baby Boomers about to retire, many with overhanging mortgages and children born later in life who have "failed to launch".
Ann Ferguson, of Age Concern Scotland, said: "We have a generation, Baby Boomers, who are trying to cope with supporting elderly parents, who have put off having children into their 30s and are still paying mortgages. These people are at risk of being pushed into real poverty.
The most vulnerable elderly people - those in their late 70s, 80s and 90s - are, Ms Ferguson believes, less likely to have such debts. They were of a "make-do" generation that was loathe to borrow and canny enough to save.
Not so the Baby Boomers: Scottish Widows found 42% of people between 50 and 59 were still paying their mortgage, a figure that only dropped to 25% for those aged between 60 and 64.
