THE tragedy of pensioner Joseph Elvin is a sharp reminder that, no matter how sophisticated and resourceful we might believe modern life is, sadly it often isn't sophisticated and resourceful enough.

He was living in squalor and suffering asthma when he bought a car and, one day later, connected a vacuum hose to its exhaust.

The death of Augusta Cale - while not in such appalling circumstances as Mr Elvin - underscores how tenuous the grip on life often is behind the front doors and net curtains of the Faithful City and the communities beyond.

The two cases are at opposite extremes. She had a family who looked after her. He died with no trace of any relative to arrange his funeral. But they share a common bond.

Much is done to support the elderly. But they were both members of a society which, too often, throws up its collective hands and asks what more it can do when, in truth, it doesn't do enough.

The headlines of recent years provide an answer, of course. Take the recurring crisis which sees social services struggling to find care and accommodation for OAPs in the face of falling nursing homes places.

The problem, it seems to us, is dealt with in ad-hoc fashion. But where's the forward-planning that accounts for a growing size of the retired classes during the coming 20 years?

Families, if a vulnerable person's lucky to have one, can only do so much.

When New Labour came to power, Prime Minister Tony Blair envisaged success being a country at ease with itself. By his own measure, on this question at least, he's failing.