A volunteer who has helped hundreds of local people through tragic losses has been given an award as a thank-you for her services.
Mo Scantlebury has been involved with St Barnabas Bereavement Support Group for the last 13 years.
The retired civil servant is the coordinator of the weekly group and one of three volunteers who talk to people about their losses.
They also run a monthly Friendship Group from St Barnabas’ Day Therapy Centre on Clover Way.
As a thank-you for Mo’s service, on Tuesday, she was presented with a Having Heart Award and flowers.
Fellow volunteer Ann Elwes was also presented with flowers as a thank-you for her service.
She said: “I live about two minutes away from here the group meets and when I retired I wondered what I was going to do.
“I decided to pop in to the centre to see what they do and was hugely impressed – that’s how I got started.
“It’s wonderful to feel as if I’m helping people.
“It’s got to be hundreds who have been in the bereavement group. There’s an average of 10 at any time and it all changes every two or three months.
“Then they progress to the Friendship Group.”
Her current group of patients also rallied around to buy an extra bouquet of flowers as thanks presented by Skye Daniel.
Her son Robert Anker, a former member of the dance group Diversity, was killed aged 27 in a car crash in Canada last year.
She said of the group: “I genuinely feel that the group is a life saver.
“It’s a bit of a sanctuary here. You can’t really talk about it in your own house as it’s so raw and it can leave you feeling so miserable.
“The biggest thing is that there are other people here who are going through the same thing and understand how you feel.
“There are three of us in this group that have lost sons.
“I thought I was going mad, but seeing those also going through similar things has helped me realise how I’m feeling is actually just normal.”
St Barnabas’ head of wellbeing Mandy Irons, said: “Mo is amazing and the kind of volunteer without whom we wouldn’t be able to run our services without.”
