Empty nests

Prince William, like thousands of other teenagers across Britain, is this week settling into college life as he finds his way around St Andrew's University. For many such first-time students, they are entering a brave new world, away from the security of home. This can be as daunting as it is exciting.

Going off to college or university is a rite of passage. Young students are on the threshold of adulthood, walking through the door to their future.

In the heady excitement of Freshers' Week when they are busy making friends, joining clubs and learning how to cook for one, few probably spare a thought for their parents and how they might be feeling.

Sending a child off to college can have a devastating effect on parents. Not only is there the worry about how their beloved offspring will cope away from home, but there can also be a huge sense of loss. Women in particular can feel that they no longer have a role.

The emotional upset even has its own name tag - "empty nest syndrome". Relationship experts Relate warn that this can trigger marital troubles and even divorce for couples who discover they've grown too far apart while focusing on bringing up their children.

My mother, Inez, still sheds a tear recalling when my twin sister, Yvonne, and I went to university 15 years ago - leaving her and my dad living alone for the first time in 18 years.

"It was absolutely dreadful. I just felt like my life was over," she says. "I just kept crying and didn't know how I was going to get my life back on track. I felt bereaved. It was like when my mother died. She had not only been my mother, but my best friend."

She reveals it was my dad, John, who pulled her through. "He told me: 'This is our time now'. He said we were young when we had our family and now we had time for ourselves. We had to learn to adjust to a new life, which didn't revolve around having children.

"We started going out together more - all day on a Saturday and Sunday, which we would never have done before, and going away for long weekends.

"A lot of parents split up when their children leave home and they discover they have nothing in common any more, but for us, it brought us closer together."

York couple Michele and Andrew Forshaw have just taken their 18-year-old daughter Esther to Newcastle to begin a marketing and business degree course at the University of Northumbria.

"We feel sad," says Michele, who still has two other daughters staying at home: Rebecca, 23, and Hannah, 16. Another daughter Ruth, 21, moved out two months ago.

"We took Esther up to Newcastle last week to her new house, which she is sharing with four other girls, and it seemed nice. But I don't think it's really sunk in yet. When I go into her room at home, there is a loss - it just seems empty. All her jewellery and makeup have gone. It's very strange.

"But we're pleased she didn't go to somewhere like Exeter as she's only an hour away on the train and can come home easily and I can pop up to meet her for lunch."

Sheelagh Loftus understands the 'empty nest syndrome' well. She dedicated 27 years of her life to bringing up her five children and admits she worried about feeling redundant without them.

"When the youngest one was 15, I thought maybe I wasn't as useful to them and it was time to do something for me," she says.

She enrolled on an employment training scheme and eventually landed a job.

This led to her post as a community learning advisor with Future Prospects, the charity which helps people improve their employment skills and get back to work.

Based in Swinegate, York, the organisation also has staff working from community centres and libraries across the city.

Sheelagh says: "We do meet older people whose children have gone to university and they don't know what to do with themselves. They feel redundant having once been so busy."

She says it can be worse when the student graduates and moves away to find work. "When they are at university, often they still come home. But if they find a job away from home, they have not only moved out of the house but out of the home town."

Sheelagh says she was surprised to discover late in life that she enjoyed studying. "I didn't like learning at school and had my family young. But I find it brings a new dimension and makes you a more interesting person... and it's not as hard as you think.

"I always encourage people to do some voluntary work first. Get involved in a community association or residents' association, learn some computer skills and step on from there. You could do some courses - or even consider going to university yourself."

But if the yearning is still there to care and nurture young people, another solution could be to become a foster carer.

Mary McKelvey, of City of York Council's fostering and adoption service, says people are never too old to be foster carers and those who have already brought up children could have a lot to offer young people in care.

"People who have brought up teenagers have a wealth of experience which they could put to good use with other young people," she said, adding that there was a particular shortage of carers in the York area for children aged over 11.

"Quite a lot of the children looked after by the local authority do go on to college and university and they would appreciate the support from people who could guide them through the education system."

For more information about Future Prospects, call freephone on 0800 834239.

To find out more about becoming a foster parent, contact City of York Council's family placement team on 555333 or via the main council number 01904 613161. The council holds regular information nights when prospective foster carers can find out more about what it entails.