UKSPF: Vintage Vibes Celebrates 10 Years with ‘Ten Years Bold’ Campaign

1st October 2025

Written by Vintage Vibes Team

Vintage Vibes Celebrates 10 Years with ‘Ten Years Bold’ Campaign to Challenge Ageing Stereotypes and End Loneliness in Edinburgh’s Older People.

Edinburgh charity Vintage Vibes is celebrating its 10th anniversary on International Older People’s Day with the launch of a striking new campaign ‘Ten Years Bold’ designed to challenge stigma around ageing, celebrate incredible older people and raise vital funds to tackle loneliness across the capital.

Launching on Wednesday, 1st October, International Older People’s Day, the campaign shines a spotlight on six remarkable Edinburgh residents in their 80s and 90s (Sheila, Robin, George, Pat, Fay and Norma) whose lives have been transformed through Vintage Vibes friendships, groups and advocacy. Each Vintage Vibes ‘VIP’ is portrayed in bold sunglasses and preloved fashion against the backdrop of Edinburgh’s vibrant street art, spreading a message of resilience, joy, individuality and confidence of local older people.

“This isn’t just a celebration”, says Georgia Artus, Director of Vintage Vibes, “It’s a bold call for change. To change perceptions of older people and celebrate them as unique and fantastic individuals. To change our Vintage Vibes community by widening our reach, as we see more and more older people in Edinburgh facing chronic isolation. To change the story of a small local charity to one that is even bolder, braver and more inclusive in the years ahead.”

The campaign comes at a time when over 12,000 older people in Edinburgh have the television as their main source of company, and with Vintage Vibes’ referrers telling them that there are more than 2,000 individuals currently in immediate need of friendship services. Since launching in 2015 in response to research identifying Edinburgh as ‘the loneliest city in the UK for older people’, Vintage Vibes has delivered 40,000 hours of friendship, with some matches lasting every week for up to 7, 8 and even 9 years.

Vintage Vibes philosophy is simple but impactful: create real, lasting friendships and groups based on shared interests between VIPs (isolated over 60s) and volunteers (aged 17 to 93!). In the past year, they have supported hundreds of mutual friendships based on everything from a love of Love Island, to learning Russian, to gluten-free cooking, to computing and gaming together.

For Ten Years Bold star Sheila, 86, who got her first tattoo aged 70, Vintage Vibes proved to be life changing:

“I like to be different, but I became very depressed when I was alone. I just absolutely love Vintage Vibes. I’ve never looked back. It gave me my life back.” About the Ten Years Bold campaign shoot, Sheila said: “It was amazing, I had no idea it was going to be like that. I love my jacket, I love this colour. I started to blossom again when I got involved in Vintage Vibes. I am so different to how I used to be. Vintage Vibes have empowered me, just to do things, and I just love it.”

Fashion stylist and Vintage Vibes friendship volunteer Michelle Oberg, who styles the photoshoot using preloved clothing, said:

“My philosophy is that fashion is for everyone, and everyone deserves to feel bold and beautiful. This experience livened my spirit, and seeing everyone’s gigantic smiles looking at themselves in the mirror and how the day shifted their energies is all the more reason to see how something seemingly small can make such a huge impact, and how important this charity is. No one was lonely that day – myself included.”

Michelle, BonnieBags, and her dog Cinnamon meet with Vintage Vibes VIP Bill to go on adventures across the city, with Cinnamon often catching a ride in Bill’s mobility scooter basket.

Vintage Vibes’ ambitious campaign hopes to show real, local, isolated older people in a way they are rarely depicted, a far cry from the traditional campaigns surrounding ageing. Vintage Vibes aims to demonstrate the incredible potential of each of us, no matter our age, and what can happen when lives are transformed through friendship.

To support the Vintage Vibes ‘Ten Years Bold’ Campaign and help end local loneliness in Edinburgh, go to https://vintagevibes.org.uk/support/.

The Vintage Vibes team kindly shared a story about one of their VIP’s Norma, 89 (“Actually 23”). Norma, born in Edinburgh during the war, is in a Vintage Vibes friendship and a member of the Vintage Vibes Film Group and an active member of Armchair Adventures, a digital Vintage Vibes group to help those who are temporarily or permanently housebound to explore Edinburgh through regular Zoom tours of Edinburgh sites.

She was previously a teacher and taught at the old Victoria Primary, now Heart of Newhaven, where Vintage Vibes is based. Her confidence has increased so much as part of being in Vintage Vibes that, alongside having a friendship volunteer, she is now also a volunteer herself and phones someone every week.

Norma’s Friendship volunteer, Sarah, said Sarah said, “Norma is just wonderful; I’m so enjoying her company.”

Norma talks about how valuable Vintage Vibes has been to her, and says of Vintage Vibes, “I don’t get to see family much, that’s the trouble. That’s why I feel alone and why I like to get a visit from someone from (Vintage Vibes). I’d go mad if I didn’t! I really would, it would be awful!”

Norma said of the photoshoot and make-up chair experience: ‘I just loved the wee brushes on your face. It’s like being a kid and being taken care of. That’s what it takes you back to. I’ve never had my makeup done before; I always did it myself. To have it done was really special. I was magic. I’ll be giving out autographs soon!

What does being bold mean to Norma? “It means taking a deep breath in and speaking about something that you find is very important at that moment.” Norma is a member of VIP Voices, a committee of Vintage Vibes VIPs who advocate on behalf of older people – “I just did it and it made me felt quite good actually. I felt supported by the Vintage Vibes community [to have a voice]”.

To find out more about Vintage Vibes, visit their website here.