Tag Archives: cancer

Drop-in centre launched for north Norfolk cancer patients and their families

North Norfolk Cancer Support Drop-in Centre founders (from left): Jo Haywood, Judith Miller and Diane Evans. Photo: KAREN BETHELL

A drop-in group for people living with cancer has been launched at Sheringham.

With a start-up grant from a local singing group and the backing of Macmillan Cancer Support.

The drop-in was the idea of Macmillan North Norfolk fundraising team members Diane Evans, Judith Miller and Jo Haywood, who, concerned about the limited support available to cancer sufferers and their families in the area, decided to take action.

Mrs Evans, who is a founder member of Sheringham women’s social and charity group Sisters in Spirit, which has raised upwards of £10,000, hoped the new group would bridge the gap between treatment and support.

“Talking to people, one of the things we heard over and over was that they couldn’t get a Macmillan nurse,” Mrs Evans explained. “But, realistically, with so many people affected that is an impossibility, so we felt there was a real need to offer something more visible in north Norfolk.

This social care crisis is hitting very close to home

I’ll never have to worry about social care for my mum. But it’s another story for her mother – my grandma.

A couple of years before mum was diagnosed, she and my dad took the decision to bring my widowed grandma down from Middlesbrough to live with them.

Obviously my parents did not factor in that one of them might not be around to look after her. Some of the final months of my mum’s life were spent worrying about where her mother would live once she was gone.

When mum died, my father tried again to get grandma, who will be 100 in four years, into residential care. We were told she could go on the waiting list for a care home.

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How does your garden grow?

John Jeffry, the Carers Garden, Brighton

‘I go out in the country sometimes and take cuttings, put them in rooting compound, then stick them in the ground. Sloes and things like that’

John Jeffry: ‘Coming here was a break. It gave me a bit of focus. I like the company.’ Photograph: Sophia Evans for the Guardian

You feel on top of the world up here – it makes everything else seem so small. The Carers Centre set up this allotment to give people a few hours break from caring each week. When I heard about it I really wanted to come but couldn’t because my wife Ellen had Alzheimer’s. When she went into a nursing home, it was hard, but coming here was a break. It gave me a bit of focus. I like the company.