The happiest days of a lifetime spent caring for others came when Hilda Holt was a Macmillan nurse at St Ann’s Hospice.
Colleagues remember the 80-year-old great grandmother with huge affection more than two decades after she retired.
Hilda, from Clifton, was instrumental in introducing relaxation techniques and massage therapies when she worked at Little Hulton from 1987 to 1995.
As a teenager Hilda volunteered a staff reunion and on a recent hospice visit she took along a photo album and beautiful poems patients had written about the hospice. A Day Care volunteer even remembered her.
Hilda said: “It was an honour to work at St Ann’s and I loved my job. It wouldn’t have been possible without the patients and there was always an atmosphere of care, faith and hope. It’s still the same today and I got that same sensation when I returned. It’s a very special place.
“I was a district nurse before I went to St Ann’s and although hospice-based, I also went out into the community to deliver palliative care. We covered a large area because there were no hospices in places such as Bolton, Bury and Rochdale at that time.”
Photo: Hilda Holt (centre) chats with former colleagues Julie Foley (left) and Kath Tweed on a nostalgic return to St Ann’s Hospice.
