A new start after 60: I became a ‘hummingbird’ for people with dementia
When Ann Thomas-Carter retired, she lost her sense of purpose. Then she began volunteering in a care home and found six hours could fly past in six minutes
A t 63, Ann Thomas-Carter stepped into Framland care home for the first time and was immediately taken aback. “It wasn’t like a care home at all; it was this beautiful old manor house overlooking the Oxfordshire countryside and there were only 21 residents,” she says. “It felt like a big family, especially since everyone calls the residents ‘family members’. I fitted in right away.”
Thomas-Carter used to work as a pharmacy dispenser at Boots in Oxford town centre. “I had worked most of my life at Boots and it was a safe place for me, somewhere I could be face to face with customers and help them,” she says. But when it emerged that the job was about to change, Thomas-Carter decided to retire. “I thought I would start to spend time pottering around the garden, but after a few weeks without work I began to feel like I never should have left.”
She was talking to a friend and former colleague about her newfound lack of purpose when they suggested that Thomas-Carter take up a volunteering role at Framland, which is run by the charity Pilgrims’ Friend Society. “I’d never done any caring beyond looking after my parents when they had cancer and helping customers when they’d just been given bad news, so I had no idea what to expect,” she says. “Still, I thought it couldn’t hurt to try. I showed up on that first day in 2017 to shadow a more experienced volunteer and six hours went in six minutes. Everyone was so welcoming and it was exciting not knowing what might happen from one hour to the next.”
