Meet the Shropshire key workers looking after others on Christmas Day

When you sit down for your festive dinner tomorrow, spare a thought for people like Sharon Lawrie and Molly Seddon who will be helping to look after residents at Withywood, an extra care scheme for the over 55s in Shrewbury which is operated by the Wrekin Housing Group.

Sharon is the Housing and Care Manager at Withywood.

Sharon said:

“We try to make it as exciting as possible. We’ve got a lot going on, we’re planning a Christmas quiz and generally making it quite nice because these are the people who might not have any family or friends that they can go to, so they’re their own little community here.

“We try and be a bit silly and not take ourselves too seriously. Christmas means different things to different people.

“I think it means a lot to the tenants and they do appreciate what we’re doing. We just want them to have a decent day. We’ll all be that age one day and you’d hope there will be someone there who cared.

“My husband is going to be at home by himself but he’s pretty happy with that – there’s a new Xbox game out!”

Molly is a Housing and Care Assistant at Withywood:

She added:

“I’d just be spending it with my family and the dog. I’m used to not celebrating Christmas on the actual day – my dad was a paramedic and now he’s with the police so we just get together when we can.

“It’s a security blanket on a day like this. Us being here makes them feel safe, they have someone to fall back on.”

A number of Wrekin staff will also be ensuring that residents get to enjoy their Christmas dinner on the day, including Chef Managers Ian Hobley and Jonathan May. They will be serving dinner with all the trimmings at the newly opened Queenswood - an extra care scheme in Newport.

Ian said:

“For our tenants, it might the first Christmas without their family, husbands, wives. You get to make peoples Christmas day special this year. Christmas day in our industry is all about other people. We choose to do it and we enjoy it. We try and bring everyone together – we pull the tables together so no one is on their own. This will be the first big social event for Queenswood so it will be nice.”

Several Wrekin staff will also be on hand to help in the event of emergencies – including Gas Heating Engineer Lee Mothershaw. This will be second year in a row Lee will have worked on Christmas Day – having been called out on several occasions to carry out emergency repairs.

Lee said:

“I’ve been called out on a few occasions to help people over Christmas and people are genuinely grateful to see us. People are very apologetic for calling you out and they will offer you a brew and a mince pie. We’re there to help people and try to ensure that any disruption to their Christmas plans is kept to a bare minimum.

“I will miss spending Christmas Day with my family. But I know I’ll get to spend time with them over the festive period.”