Nominee
Mandy Preece
The Charity
Macmillan Caring Locally
Macmillan Caring Locally Website
The Hotel
Salcombe Harbour Hotel
Salcombe Harbour Hotel Website
Nomination Extract
“Mandy is exceptional, her voluntary role, humbles us all. Mandy is a soul midwife (end of life companion) for Macmillan Caring Locally and now trains other volunteers to do this unique role.”
Mandy’s Volunteer Role
“I nursed Mum at home. She died of stomach and pancreatic cancer and I came here to a bereavement support centre. I started training to be a holistic end of life companion and then I plucked up the courage to ask could I actually sit with someone when they are dying.
One lady, her husband decided that the best way he could honour his wife was to go and be with the children, to make sure that they had their dad with them when the phone call came through. He knew that that’s what his wife would want. So I came and sat with her. As the clock came round to school pick up time I said to her – she was unconscious – ‘It’s school pick up time. Your children are safe. They’re OK. Your husbands gone to pick them up.” She turned to me, opened her eyes slightly and smiled at me, and then she died.”
– Mandy
They Said…
“Sometimes in life you don’t realise what you’ve achieved until somebody else says ‘Hey, look what you’ve done!’ and that’s what the nomination gave me. It made me think ‘wow I really have done something here that made a difference.
We felt like royalty! Everyone was so nice to us. It was a beautiful, beautiful hotel to stay in and everything was perfect, but how we were treated and how we were made to feel special, that was the icing on the cake.”
– Mandy