Well established local charity, The Wilverley Association, were thrilled to celebrate their 50th anniversary this weekend with a tea party held for all their residents, families, staff, special guests and trustees. The party was held at their Forest Oaks, Brockenhurst care home with nearly 100 local people attending, and those residents well enough to travel being transported over from their Little Haven home to join in the celebrations.
The party was held to thank everyone for their continued hard work and to commemorate their founding members and remember how and why this charitable organisation was set up in the first place. The Wilverley Association was founded in 1964, with its original premise being to ‘provide housing and care for retired people and to give security in case of illness’.
In the 1960’s the local community was still recovering from the fall out of the First World War, a time when they had lost a great many young men, who gave their lives fighting for their country . This meant that once the war was over a great many local women, who had been left behind, never married and as a result spent their formative years looking after relatives and their relative’s children rather than having their own. By the 1960’s these women had become the spinsters of the parish and approached their dotage without anyone to look after them. Blanche Hindson, an extremely capable and determined spinster of the parish, recognised that there was a need for someone to provide high quality nursing and residential care for over 65’s in the New Forest. She worked tirelessly to set up the charity and succeeded in acquiring the land where their first home, Forest Oaks, stands today and then securing their second home, Little Haven.
One of the House Committee members, Tim Thomas gave a speech at the party and the cake was cut to rapturous applause. As the Chief Executive, Gail Pussard told me, “we have expanded beyond all recognition over the last 50 years, I’m immensely proud of our team who continue to provide dedicated care for over 65’s year after year, we look forward to the next 50 years.”
