Sue Perkins faces 'greatest fear' by living in isolation for 30 hours to highlight loneliness

TV personality Sue Perkins agreed to be cut off from the rest of the world and confined in a house for 30 hours and has described her short time in isolation as a "shock".

Left with no human contact nor access to the internet, TV, radio or her mobile phone, Sue Perkins agreed to have her 30-hour incarceration filmed for a TV advert to highlight how too many people struggle with loneliness.

Poor concentration, lethargic and very cold

The presenter has said her self-imposed isolation, shown in the Cadbury TV advert (made in partnership with Age UK) left her increasingly unable to concentrate, lethargic and “very cold” because she was not on the move, going out or visiting anyone.

The former Great British Bake Off presenter, who was only allowed two hours to read a day, said in the TV advert: “I felt physically tired within a couple of hours. I can’t remember the last time I slept during the day.

“Even though the sound of the clock was ever present, time doesn’t have a meaning if there’s no one to see.”

Sue Perkins noticed her appetite for food declined as well as her ability to taste. She described feeling like her brain was powering down.

She soon became only able to complete tasks for 20 minute at a time, and would for example eat food, then sleep or pace the room and sleep again.

After 30 hours of looking out the window, pacing the room and sleeping a lot, the comedian said she felt herself starting to “give up” as there was nothing to look forward to.

Sue Perkins admits that as a child-free person, loneliness in later life is her “greatest fear”.

“Loneliness is the thing I’m most frightened of in the whole of my life. I knew when this was going to end but imagine if I didn’t. I could be in here with the blinds down for days, weeks on end and no one would care."

Her time in the house came to an end with a knock on the door from 89-year-old Theresa who sat down to have a cup of tea with her. The woman told Sue Perkins that her own life used to be lonely every day until she joined her local Age UK befriending service.

Sue Perkins described feeling “such relief when that doorbell went” and also noted how even the sound of the doorbell was very loud.

Research by Age UK has found 225,000 older people across the UK often go a whole week without speaking to anyone. Some 1.4 million people in the UK struggle with loneliness.

The TV star agreed to appear in the advert after a chance encounter in hospital revealed how painfully extreme loneliness can be.

Admitted in an open ward, she spotted an elderly woman lying in the bed opposite her. The woman had been attacked in her own home. She recalls the woman being stiff from the extent of her injuries and offered to rub her back. After rubbing her back, the elderly woman told her it was the first time she had been touched in about 15 years.

The message from the TV advert highlights how a few little words to a lonely person can help.

The advert is part of the second phase of chocolate brand Cadbury's advertising campaign 'Donate your words'. A partnership between Cadbury, Sky Media and Age UK saw Sue Perkins' 30 hours alone filmed and broadcast on Sky Media throughout October.

Cadbury’s loneliness ad campaign began in September. The brand is selling limited edition Cadbury Dairy Milk bars that don’t have any writing on the front of them because they are donating the words, as well as 30p from each bar sold to help lonely, older people.

This latest loneliness TV advert by Cadbury follows another (first broadcast on 9 September) which showed an older man living on his own, who is forced to continually return toys that have been flung over his hedge by a group of boys next door. Finally, the children throw a Dairy Milk chocolate bar over the fence as a gift for him.