A letter from Bill Ward

This is not a letter about grief (although it is a bit). This is also not a letter about death (although it is a bit about that too). This is more a letter about life, positivity, and the remarkable place that is St Oswald’s Hospice.

Our Dad, Nigel Ward, spent 6 weeks in St Oswald’s earlier this year. Dad had prostate cancer. He’d been diagnosed with it 5 years or so ago, and found out that it had spread to his bones towards the end of February of this year. He was 87, and apart from a few years out in Northumberland at Whittingham during the war, had lived in Newcastle all his life. He loved it. He ran the local butchers, RA Dodds, for years. When that ran out, he ran his own shop on the Great North Road. When that ran out, he sold pensions, and worked on the meat counter at Fenwicks, and in the Grainger Market in town. He loved playing the accordion, playing golf, and Scottish Country Dancing. His garden was, and still is, a place of wonder. On top of all of that, he was just Dad. Quietly supportive, encouraging, wise, and always very kind.