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While serving on the Council for Voluntary Services, I came into contact with some members of the Brockhall Hospital League of Friends, who invited me to one of their meetings at the hospital, wrote Allan Huntingdon.
After the meeting, I was shown round the hospital at Langho Nr. Blackburn, and I saw all the facilities that were available for the mentally sick residents, some of whom I met and was very impressed.
I was invited to join the committee as an observer, but as I could see what great work they were doing, I decided to join as a full member. It was very rewarding work raising money for various comforts for the residents.
One project we raised money for was to buy a new seven berth caravan. We negotiated with Stonyhurst College for a bit of land on the outskirts of their estate and made a site there for the caravan. Then we invited the staff to select suitable residents to have a holiday there. It was a great success. Some of the residents thought they were in the lakes or in Scotland. It was such a lovely site, I could have enjoyed a holiday there myself.
Eventually I was persuaded to accept the post of Treasurer and the next big project we were asked to do was build a swimming pool. Well, we had never been asked for anything as big as this before and we had to think very carefully before we would take on such a big venture.
Eventually, though we said we would give it a go and we went all out to raise the necessary funds. We first got an estimate for the cost. It came to £20,000. We were really going to have our work cut out to raise that kind of money but we said we would and set about doing just that. By the end of three months we had raised about £2,500 and were preparing for the annual fete in the hospital grounds.
We really needed someone or something special to draw the crowds and raise a large sum. One morning I read in the papers that the racehorse Red Rum was being retired from racing. I contacted Aintree Racecourse and obtained the phone number of Ginger McCain who was the owner and asked him if he would be prepared to bring Red Rum to the hospital.
He readily agreed and we arranged a fee of £300 for expenses and show fee etc. It was still a gamble but I thought it was worth it as I had been investing the monies already collected at a very good rate of interest, so that could cover the cost if we came unstuck.
The day arrived. It was an unqualified success. The weather was brilliant, the sideshows did a roaring trade, the tombola and raffle broke all records, and as for Red Rum, he was certainly the star of the show. All the residents wanted to see him and so did all the hundreds of visitors.
At the end of the day, as Ginger was loading Red Rum into the trailer I went to pay him and he refused to accept payment and donated it to the fund. What a man! How can you thank someone like that?
We did raise the money needed but by the time we had raised it the cost had gone through the roof to about £60,000. That was an impossible figure to achieve so we compromised and bought a Hydrotherapy Pool with all the trimmings at a cost of £40,000. Shortly after that I had to resign from the League due to my wife's deteriorating health. But it was an experience I will never forget.
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