EARLIER this summer, when the Queen and Prince Philip visited Worcester as part of their Diamond Jubilee tour, they sat down to lunch in the Guildhall alongside a lady who would certainly have brought a twinkle to the Duke’s eye.

For Ida Parkinson jokes she has slept with more old men in Worcestershire than anyone else.

All in the best possible taste, of course, with Ida’s dry Irish humour making light of what was often a desperate situation.

Because she had taken her camp bed to pitch down beside people dying from cancer. As the county’s first Macmillan Nurse, Ida was there to make the lives of the terminally ill more comfortable and her pioneering work created a caring path many have walked along since.

Aged 80 now, Ida actually retired from full-time nursing in 1993, but since then has devoted her considerable energies to cancer fund-raising. Under her guidance, a local Macmillan charity committee has nearly topped £1 million in less than two decades. If there was a more deserving person to dine with the Queen, they’d be hard to find.

Not that Ida blows her own trumpet. In fact, it’s the complete opposite and she has always said her reward is the difference she can make to cancer patients and their families through the nurses she helps to fund and the services and equipment she helps to provide.

“If you don’t get it right first time, there’s rarely a second chance,” she said. “I want to get it right for as many people as I can.”

All this began from most unpromising circumstances. Ida was born in rural Ireland in the early 1930s.

Her parents were farmers and their home at Clones in County Monaghan had no running water or electricity.

Social attitudes were different too and when their daughter mentioned she wanted to become a nurse, it was like the Devil had spoken – nursing was not considered a respectable profession for a young lady.

So Ida ran away from home to train at Belfast Children’s Hospital.

It was three months before her family even knew where she was.

After qualifying as a state registered nurse, she moved to Yorkshire and none of her family attended her wedding on Christmas Eve 1955. They were all farmers and being Christmas, couldn’t get anyone else to look after their animals.

Ida trained as a district nurse in Rugby, Warwickshire, and then moved to Redditch in 1972, again as a district nurse.

Her way with people and love of the community led her to being chosen as the first Macmillan nurse in Worcestershire, a role she filled for eight years before the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch asked her to become the first hospital-based Macmillan nurse – a job she did until she retired.

But in a way that was just the start of it. During her time as a community Macmillan nurse, many people wanted to donate money so others could be helped, as their loved ones had been.

So Ida spent much of her free time setting up trusts with the aim of making the lives of terminally ill people more comfortable.

If funds were needed, for example, for a special mattress, rather than going through the lengthy process of applying for grants, which may not come through until it was too late, one of Ida’s trusts could make the funds available swiftly, thereby improving quality of life exactly when it was needed.

Items not available in abundance from the NHS, such as syringe pumps, could be bought to keep patients as comfortable as possible.

Ida was also instrumental in setting up the Primrose Hospice in Bromsgrove, an independent charity offering advice and support to cancer patients and their families, and helped set up and run charity shops, raising further funds for Macmillan.

“Mum is a firm believer that no one should have to die in pain,” her daughter Alison Harris said.

“She worked tirelessly, educating doctors and other health professionals in the effective use of pain relief, in addition to her dayto- day work with patients and their families.

“As a family we got used to the sight of her rushing in and filling her washing machine with sheets.

It was not part of her job description, but if a partner just couldn’t cope and the patient wanted to receive their palliative care in their own home, it could be the alternative to social services intervention.

“Mum believes everyone who wants to should have the right to die in their own bed, at home, surrounded by their loved ones, and they should be enabled to live their life, however limited, to the full.

“One Christmas our turkey appeared on the table with a leg missing and the warning look she gave us said, ‘Don’t ask’.

“It was only years later we discovered she had delivered it to an elderly couple whose bird had burnt and Mum wanted to make sure their last Christmas dinner together would not be spoiled.

“She boasts of having slept with more old men in Worcestershire than anyone else, her Irish humour making light of the fact that she frequently took a camp bed to sleep beside patients to give their relatives a good night’s rest.

“Many bereaved people have joined our dinner table on Sundays and feast days if she felt they would not be able to cope with their unaccustomed solitude.

“Her care for the families of her patients did not stop when they died but continued in her own time and at her own expense.

“To Mum, being a Macmillan Nurse was a way of life, not simply a job for a certain number of hours a week. She is a doer, not a talker, an exceptional listener and very skilled at avoiding the limelight.”

Nevertheless, two years ago Macmillan Cancer Support bestowed on Ida Parkinson its prestigious Platinum Award and now she has received the ultimate accolade, the Douglas Macmillan Award, the highest recognition the organisation can give to a volunteer.

And no doubt the Queen and Duke will raise a glass to that.

 

IN 2011, Ida featured in a Channel
5 programme called Celebrity
Wishlist. She was nominated for
the ‘Heartwarmer’ element of the
show as an unsung heroine.
She was nominated by Peter
Harris, who had been a family
friend for years, after she nursed
Peter’s wife Chris during the final
stages of her treatment for breast
cancer and a brain tumour.
She continued to support Mr
Harris and his teenage daughter –
who was so inspired she went on
herself to become a Macmillan
nurse – during the months after
Chris passed away. The show
surprised Ida to thank her for
volunteering so much of her time.
Ali Bastian, the show’s guest
presenter, pictured with Ida, told
Ida’s story before presenting her
with a gift in recognition of all
that she had done.