Our standard one-hour visits mean we have the time to get to know our clients which is an aspect of the role that our caregivers really enjoy. 

We have been providing Heather with home care for some years, and at the age of 93 she always has a story or two to share with our team. 

Heather was born in Preston in the year of the General Strike. She describes how it was ‘terrible with no food’ but because her father had some money, he was able to employ somebody to look after his wife and new-born daughter. With no NHS, had this care not been possible, Heather suspects she and her mother would not have survived.  

Heather says: “I was an only child. After my mother had me, the doctor said to my father ‘no more children’. My mum was tiny and the doctor said more children would probably kill her. My father said ‘that doesn’t matter. I’ve got what I wanted, I’ve got a little girl’.” 

At the age of seven, Heather’s father sadly died so she and her mother moved south to be nearer her maternal grandparents and the rest of the family. 

Heather was educated at a boarding school in Kent which she says was ‘wonderful’. It was the custom for the younger students to look after the older students. Janet was assigned to Heather and explaining what she did, Heather says: “Janet used to clean my locker and hang up my clothes. She brought me strawberry jam to have at a midnight feast by the lake. Janet – I will never forget her, absolutely wonderful.” 

Heather was at school during World War II and reminisced about the time a bomb fell nearby. She says: “Our school was not a direct hit, but a bomb fell alongside it which took out the windows. We were underground because that is where we slept.” Asked if she was scared, Heather said: “No – it was war. The main thing was the adults were very calm, so the children were calm. It was war – we accepted war.”

Heather had a further near miss on a school trip to Torquay. She says: “Everybody knows about this one because it was in the papers. The headline was ‘Schoolgirls machine gunned on the beach in the west country’. We were on a small beach that was open just for swimming when two German planes came over and we were machined gunned on the beach. I turned around and saw the pilots. The planes were shot down, so they never made it home but to this day, I remember the pilot’s face. 

“We went back to school in the afternoon for a geography lesson after thanking the Lord that we were safe. We went to geography with our gas masks on - that was our life, it was war.”

After she left school, Heather went to clerks’ college in Surbiton and, in the early 1950s she met her husband to be at an operatic society in Weybridge. Singing was a passion shared by both Heather and her husband Frederick (Fred). They appeared in lots of shows together including Gilbert and Sullivan. 

Asked about Frederick, Heather said: “Initially he was a contracts manager with his firm. He was very clever and, in the war, he was on reserved occupation because he was building boilers for ships.” 

In married life, she says: “He never cooked which was a disadvantage. He could only make tea, not coffee; absolutely hilarious. Before we married, his Mother used to do everything for him so that didn’t help either!” 

Heather and Frederick had two daughters. Their youngest lives in the USA where she has her own dog walking/pet sitting business. Heather now has four grandchildren and three great children. 

In the past, Heather has enjoyed travelling. She has visited her daughter at her home in Maryland and has spent holidays in Portugal, Spain and Italy. Heather recalls the time she visited Rome and saw the Sistine Chapel. She fondly describes it as ‘something extraordinary for colour and cost’. She says: “It must have cost thousands and thousands. I saw the Pope - not me on my own - he came out onto the balcony and spoke to us. He wished us all well and a wonderful life and to remember our prayers. He said God will be good to us as we are here now and listening. It was quite emotional.” 

Heather was very active in her neighbourhood community, helping to start a residents’ association and social club. She was involved in organising all the activities and is still an active member on both committees. 

Nowadays, Heather likes to do crosswords and says that she is ’quite good at them’. 

If you are interested in having some home care like Heather, please contact us for an initial conversation about how we can help.