Staff, volunteers and supporters are commemorating the 35th anniversary of Blythe House Hospice in 2024.
Rev Betty Packham
Reverend Betty Packham, and her life companion, Doris Turck, cared for Stan Blythe in the comfort of their Buxton home during the final months of his life after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Stan left Betty a £1,000 gift in his will, and Betty used this money to establish the hospice in 1989 in memory of Stan.
Back in 2019, when staff at the hospice were celebrating its 30th anniversary, Betty and Doris shared their fond memories of Stan from the time he resided with them at their home. Their words were used in small way during the celebrations in 2019, but were never fully transcribed or published.
Since Betty sadly died in late 2022, and Doris shortly after in early 2023, it has never felt more important to look meticulously through the hospice archives and ensure that we are preserving the charity’s legacy with pride and respect.
We hope you enjoy reading Betty and Doris’ fond recollections of Stan, his family and friends – recorded back in 2019…
Doris Turck
Betty explained: ‘Stan had lost his wife to cancer. He had one daughter, called Ann, and he was a secondary school teacher in Kent’s Bank. All the lads remembered him; if you said to anyone “Do you remember Stan?” They would say: “All we heard about was birds, and if you did something he really didn’t like, he would just grab you by the scruff of the neck and wham! You were outside!” And all these sorts of stories because he did have a temper. He and I had arguments galore! I really loved him as a man.’
Doris said: ‘He had a very little bit of sight, and he often he got letters so I would go up to his room and he’d say: “Read these or translate these for me!” and he was a great chap. He would have the television on, and I would say Stan: “Can you actually see any of this?” I think it was Barnsley football team, and he would peer at this, and I don’t know if he saw very much!
‘He always used to take a group from the wildlife group in Buxton to Chrome Hill because apparently that’s a place if you’re a bird person where you can hear nightingales, and so they would go at certain times of the year with lots of lovely memories. Often when you lose one faculty, like your sight, your hearing becomes more acute; his was absolutely brilliant.’
Betty then explained: ‘Doris sends her friend from Surrey a regular update of the hospice – she wrote back to Doris and she said: “It’s extraordinary after reading your update; seems only yesterday I visited you in Buxton and there was Mr Blythe in the room next door.” She has a personal interest as well as general support for the hospice.
Stan Blythe
‘All Stan’s friends came to feed him, it was lovely. His daughter Ann had Down Syndrome; he taught her a lot; she was very clever. When he died, she came to visit him, and she took his pipe and put it on his forehead as he lay there, and I will always remember that.
‘The most important thing is when he was dying, he was told by the doctor that it was coming, I went to hold his hand and he had his little radio on the side, on his window because he used to wake up in the middle of the night and put it on. This damn radio was shouting out, something about the “birds are singing and I don’t know how to say goodbye.” He was an ornithologist of really good repute, he really knew what he was doing – and this blasted thing came out as he was lying there dying and that sort of thing is just so special, it’s a tremendously emotional thing.’
Doris said of Stan’s funeral: ‘One moment during the prayers when there was stillness, we heard birdsong. It was so right because he was the longest serving president of Buxton Field Club.’
Feature image – 137 Manchester Road in Chapel-en-le-Frith where the hospice was founded; taken from the 1992 hospice newsletter
