I was involved in the first place because my mother had been very ill and died of cancer. It wasn’t at all nice. This was before they knew anything about hospices.

My best friend Joyce Brooks told me they had formed a committee to look at starting a hospice.

I was a Councillor at the time as well and I’d already done several appeals in the town, and they asked me if I would take on the job of appeal organiser. I was only too pleased to do it because I felt I was giving something from my mother who didn’t benefit from this.

We kept going with the appeal and started to look for premises. Elizabeth Hall, Joyce and I looked at several but they were all unsuitable and there wasn’t any ground with them.