Helen was born in Portsmouth and moved to Scotland when she was very young where she was brought up by her grandmother. She moved to England to live with her father when she was aged 13. She moved to Pan more than 50 years ago. Helen has a son, daughter-in-law and 2 granddaughters who live in the Portsmouth area.

Helen is a trained nurse and used to work night shifts in residential homes. Unfortunately Helen’s husband suffered a stroke 13 years ago. She nursed him at home on her own for 8 years until he was admitted into a rest home in Ventnor and continued to drive there every day to visit him until he died in 2005.

After such a long time of being extremely busy and stressed, Helen suddenly realised she had been sitting alone in front of the TV and doing nothing else for an entire month. She found herself thinking “Life must be about more than this”. Helen’s confidence was at an all-time low and she did not consider that she had any skills she could offer other than her nursing experience.

It was at this time that she saw an advertisement in the Pan Neighbourhood Partnership (PNP) newsletter – the Pan Pathfinder - asking for residents to come forward who were willing to stand as members of the Management Board. Helen was elected to the Board in Pan’s first ever resident’s election with special responsibility for the interests of Older People.

In 2006 Helen was asked to speak of her experience of caring for her husband at a Carers’ Event held by PNP at St George’s Football Club. This was quite a challenge for her as she had never done any public speaking before and did an excellent job. She has assisted at the Pan Photographic Exhibitions and is a regular helper at the weekly Short Mat Bowls sessions.

At the Annual General Meeting of the PNP Management Board in June 2008 Helen was elected as Chair of the Board. She meets with the staff of PNP every 2 months and they go through agenda items for the next Board meeting as well as updates on activities and project finances.

She is also Treasurer for the local resident group Pan Together and a member of the island’s Older Voices Forum

Helen has become involved in a tremendous range of new things and learned a lot about all sorts of subjects from government policy on regeneration through to a diverse collection of local issues. She has continued to receive help and support from PNP and Pan’s local councillor and is developing her understanding of issues affecting the local area as well as current accounting systems for her role as treasurer. Through her involvement with PNP Helen has got herself a computer and really enjoys using it.

Helen has attended computer courses put on by Downside Middle School and PNP, a course on how to be a Chair (useful in her role on the PNP Board) run by the Rural Community Council and is currently undertaking an NVQ Level 2 in Community Development, provided by TWICs (Training for Working Communities), based in Southampton. The NVQ acts as a vehicle that demonstrates just what Helen is capable of achieving.

Helen has also taken an active part in all the trips organised by PNP which included the Chelsea Flower Show, the musical “Buddy” at Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre and the BBC studios at Shepherd’s Bush, amongst others. She is actively involved with Medina Housing Association to organise the Pan Garden Show in conjunction with the Growing Spaces project. She was instrumental in helping to set up adult Art Classes on Pan. These classes were mainstreamed (and funded) by the Isle of Wight Council’s Community Learning section. An exhibition was held at St Thomas’s Church in 2008 where all students were invited to display their work.

Helen’s most major contribution was to the organisation of the Pan Fashion Shows. When asked what inspired her to want to put on a fashion show, Helen said that she used to work in the fashion department at the Army and Navy stores which was a three-storey department store in Newport when she first moved to the island. The store held fashion shows to promote their clothes at the Ponda Rosa and Helen took to the catwalk herself as the model for their Norman Linton collection.

The first Pan fashion show was in 2007 when she applied for a PNP Community Grant to help fund the event and got additional support from Age Concern. Helen approached Bon Marche and Matalan to supply the clothes. With the help of the Community Activities Worker (Tina) from PNP Helen set about recruiting local people as models, attending many rehearsals so that they were prepared for the catwalk. There was also a “Glamorous Granny” competition with judges including Police Five’s Shaw Taylor. This was a steep learning curve for Helen as she had not previously realised how much work was involved in organising an event which also included refreshments and a charity raffle. “I learned so much from Tina about how to put on an event like this.”

This year (2009) the fashion stores involved were Bon Marche and Peacocks. The format was slightly different but there was a wider range of people prepared to act as models once the word had spread of how good the first show was. There was even entertainment in the form of Belly Dancers who put on an excellent show!

Helen’s view of the opportunities PNP have given her are “It’s given me my life back. I feel a real purpose in life”. Life can get very busy but, overall, Helen enjoys all of it. “I just want to cram as much in as I can”

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