Churchtown in Cornwall is a holiday centre with a difference. It plays host to groups of people who would find most activity holidays hard to cope with. It’s just this difference which so impressed Phil Lyon from Loughborough when he went there last month as a volunteer carer with Leicestershire Headway, the charity which helps with rehabilitation after brain injury.

Phil helps out every Wednesday at Headway’s outreach centre in Loughborough ‘doing anything that needs doing’. He also loves the outdoor life, so when he was asked if he’d be interested in combining his hobby with his volunteering work he jumped at the chance.

Phil says he drew tremendous strength from watching Headway holidaymakers at Churchtown really stretching themselves. ‘We had one member whose brain injury is the result of a height-related accident and who had been afraid of heights ever since’, he relates. ‘To see him start to take part in the climbing activities was amazing.’

Phil got pretty stretched sometimes himself of course. The people he was looking after have been through a lot and are still affected by horrific injuries. He soon realised that on a trip like this, 24-hour care is exactly that. ‘When your night has been disturbed by a room-mate suffering from insomnia and discomfort caused by medication and injury, who then needs your help at 6.30 in the morning, your caring is tested right to the core, believe me!’

Even this doesn’t put him off though, and he’d jump at the chance to do something similar again. He spends his working hours at his IT business in front of a computer, and the ability to mix with people and help them while enjoying his own favourite activities is, he thinks, ‘totally me’.

Headway is always on the lookout for more volunteers like Phil, and anyone interested can contact Headway House in Leicester on 0116 273 9763 or go through its web site at www.HeadwayLeicester.org.uk.

Accompanying photo caption: Phil Lyon and fellow Headway holidaymakers at Bodmin Station.

This release issued by Richard Bird (01327 704734 or email )
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