Rachel House, Kinross

Fife Today

Ken Lowndes’ two daughters Jenny and Marion were two of the first children to be cared for at Rachel House when it opened.  The hospice is now set for a £17m transformation.

Transcript

00:00and I remember that the first time we actually walked in through the doors of

00:05Martin House the carers came out helped us with the girls helped us with all our

00:11gear helped her with all the drugs and things and as Anne walked in through the

00:16door she just burst into tears just burst into tears of relief and after a

00:23few days when we were packing up to leave and best entities again when we

00:30were leaving and Anne was not a shrinking violet in fact when you think about it

00:35the distance from London to Kinross is 447 miles and I only realized just very

00:43recently that we were driving the equivalent of London to Kinross as our

00:50first help and it actually blows me away now just just thinking of that distance

00:58so I was pretty determined that we would do anything that we could to make sure

01:05that there was a hospice a lot closer to the Scottish need but I was very much in

01:12some ways at the blunt end of it

01:17I didn't actually want to go to Rachel House because I wanted to stay with the

01:22people we knew but of course when Rachel House opened it was a no-brainer we just

01:29had to change the modus operandi and because the difference between 220 miles and

01:37440 miles was just it was inconceivable to to keep doing it

01:45well as as as a as a as a hospice I've already said of the difference between a

01:54hospital and a hospice but the thing the thing you've got to remember about about

02:00the hospice although Rachel House is called a children's hospice it's really a

02:05family hospice in the sense that disability and and if you have a

02:12disabled child it's not only the child that's disabled it it it bends everything

02:18out of shape your attitude to life it bends everything you can do if we hadn't

02:27have had a hospice I don't know I can't say that we would have survived as a

02:35family disability in a family is is going to make the success of a family less

02:46likely I mean families come under all sorts of stress and let's face it divorce

02:51rates go up and down and and increase generally so the more help that families

03:00get the more chance that your family is will stay together and ultimately the

03:06better thing for society I mean you know I always judge a society by how the

03:15society treats their poor and old and sick and if if you don't do that then you don't

03:24have a society worth worth considering so next time they went into hospital had their

03:33life saved when they came out there was always Rachel house to aim for and when we

03:39left at Rachel house we'd have a date again to aim for and so when we were

03:45running out of energy we'd say two more weeks and we'll be in Rachel household and and so

03:52that kept us going and that's that's what and that was I mean the value of Jenny's life and

04:07Marion's life don't measure it in the life lifetime span because that's not

04:15important I value Jenny and Marion's life is the effect that they had on other

04:21people and I I think most people who've met Jenny and Marion or hadn't Jenny and

04:29married ever forgot them I don't think they were ever forgettable and I think

04:37that's what it's all about really it's just they I think the term is they as

04:47children or as human beings they they they punched above their weight

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