Personality Profile

She takes up the reins, if you like, at perhaps the most challenging time, post-Covid, in its 28 year history and the boss, known to all as ‘Vin’, has been there for 22 of them.

Demelza, which now has three sites in the south-east, is a place where, in short, very sick children go to slip away from their suffering. It is done so in Demelza’s calmness and loving serenity and where those left behind find comfort and understanding in their darkest hour.

Vin was born in Chelmsford, Essex, to her soldier father (a Grenadier Guard) and a mother who was a nurse. She doesn’t say when, other than to allude to “a very big figure fast approaching”. While she was still a young child they relocated to Sittingbourne (‘my hometown’) and has remained in the area ever since.

Clearly, her parents were “big influencers” in her life, her guiding lights.

She says: “They taught me about being kind, forgiving, supportive and caring – values I hold very dear to this day.

“I had the most loving childhood; money was in short supply, but love, fun and affection were not. My parents adored children and loved all four of their grandchildren with a passion.

“They met and married in the early 1950s when my dad, a Second Battalion Grenadier Guard, was stationed at Chelsea Barracks, and my mum, a nurse who trained and worked at Kings College Hospital London, met on a bus coming home from a dance. The rest is history, as they say.

“Both were massive Demelza supporters and my dad used to package and send off all Demelza’s mail order Christmas cards, which used to make the hospice about £40k per year in those days. Sadly, I lost my parents in 2003, but I know how incredibly proud they would be of Demelza today and of me working hard to lead us in the right direction.”

Vin attended Highsted Grammar School, where like many in the selective system at the time, were told that they represented the “top 15%”, a label that she “hated”.

“We were also told not to have anything to do with horses and to never be a secretary. I have lived for horses throughout my life and in particular during my school years, so I left to train as a medical secretary! I have never worked as a medical secretary, although the knowledge of medical terminology has been invaluable, and I suspect I may not have been the school’s greatest stand out pupil. However, I made life-long friends and there were some excellent teachers who made a lasting impression on me, for which I am extremely grateful.”

Vin is “incredibly close” to her sister Teresa, who is seven years older.

“Growing up I think I may have been a massive inconvenience, as I am seven years younger than her, but now we are incredibly close and I, literally, couldn’t be without her. We tend to know exactly what each other is thinking (good and bad) and we often only have to look at each other before bursting out laughing.”

According to Teresa, Vin was an “independent, confident and very occasionally argumentative child”, traits she hopes to have shaken off today.

These days, she lives close to the hospice wither husband of 30 years, Nigel, with whom she has two “beautiful” daughters, Rebecca and Lauren, who represent her “most precious and proud achievement”.

Rebecca works for the Kent Fire and Rescue Service, and like mum, is horse-mad while Lauren is a children’s nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

A pattern of professional caring and/or public office starts appearing through Vin’s entire family, it seems.

She jokes: “We’re working crazy hours at the moment so the horses are my downtime. I need that downtime. I don’t mind getting up at five in the morning to pick up poo and muck the stables out and go for a ride – then do the same at night when work finishes.”

Lauren, who was deterred from equine pursuits by cold weather and mucking out, does share the love of all animals.

“It goes without saying that all my family are great Demelza supporters, Lottery players and ambassadors. Supporting Demelza is a phenomenon that engulfs many families; it’s how it is. In our volunteers, we have husband and wife teams, mums and daughters, dads and sons, and often the whole family.”

In the 22 years she has been at Demelza, the hospice has grown from 30 staff and fewer than 100 volunteers to 360 employees and 1,100 voluntary workers.

“I think I may have done almost every job in the organisation at some time through our ‘Work in Their Shoes’ initiative, to help us understand and respect each other and the challenges we have in our individual roles.”

Her five-year strategy, which neatly dovetails with the emergence from the pandemic restrictions, includes a bold and courageous programme of training its own nurses in the face of national shortage of specialist healthcare professionals. Coronavirus curtailed fundraising towards the £12m running costs, particularly since the Government contributes only 12%.

“They say you should find something you like doing and you will never work again. Well, the hours are long and the work can be challenging, even heart-breaking, at times, but I love what I do. We say we admit it, we love what we do. From every staff member to every volunteer – it shows.

“The children and their families are the most rewarding and the best part of this role. They can face great adversity in their lives, yet children with complex needs are cared for by their families like there has been years and years of training.

“You cannot underestimate the strength these families find from within, nor can you imagine how anyone could do a better job for each child. I am always humbled and inspired in equal measure.”

Vin was acting chief executive of the Demelza for eight months before officially taking up the job on February 2 this year after a rigorous interview process from the trustees and children and parents.

She says: “Our whole leadership team and children and families have helped to contribute to our new strategy from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2027, and I cannot wait to share it with you. I am truly honoured to love what I do and have such great teams around me.”

There are just under 745,000 nurses on the Nursing and Midwifery Council Register in the UK but less than 10% are children’s nurses or learning disability nurses, who are most likely to have the skills to meet the needs of providing palliative care in a children’s hospice setting. The estimates are that the UK is around 40,000 nurses short to fill all the currently vacant posts in the UK, and some claim this figure is much higher.

“More nurses will support our aim to provide more care to more children and families, giving choice to where they would like to receive end of life care when the time comes, and supporting the whole family throughout the child’s life.”

“My biggest vice is horses, in fact, all animals. When my daughters were younger we bred our beautiful King Charles spaniel. She had nine puppies across two litters. I know where all of them are and I still own one of them (she is now 10). My sister has another two, and my nephew has one. I also have a seven-yearold black Labrador who was rescued from a house when his owner was sadly found dead. He had been overfed, was morbidly obese and had never been exercised. He has been with us nearly three years now, and is a gorgeous gentle giant. Like all Labradors, he still thinks he is a puppy and is unlikely to grow up, despite his greying muzzle.”

“If my lovely husband asks me what I would like for a birthday or Christmas present I always say ‘anything with four legs’. He now threatens to buy me a table. A good sense of humour is a must for a children’s hospice. You may think they are dark and dismal places and that couldn’t be further from the truth. They are places of great fun and humour, places where memories are made for the entire family, where support, kindness and nonjudgemental care is in abundance.”

As a charity, Demelza is almost entirely dependent on its supporters to provide the funds that keep its services going. If you would like to find out more about the charity and to donate, please go to: