Interviewer

So good afternoon. Could I ask your name?

Gerry Frobisher

Yes. I’m Gerry Frobisher.

Interviewer

And could I ask how old you are Gerry?

Gerry Frobisher

I’m 66.

Interviewer

And could I ask what group are we going to be talking about today?

Gerry Frobisher

I think we’re going to  be talking about Prestatyn Central Surgery, which finished sadly about five or six years ago.

Interviewer

Thank you. So what in your life meant that you got involved in volunteering?

Gerry Frobisher

My mum was always a big volunteer with the church. Various groups when I was growing up.  Then I sort of fell to one side volunteering wise, and when I joined the police force. But I was always up to something with, “come on, we can have a social”. So I would organise a social or a trip out somewhere. So I suppose that in a way was volunteering. But then when I left the police force, I, well, sorry, while I was in this police force back in about 1985, 86, I started up a youth club in Meliden where I live. Everyone said “it’ll last six months”, it lasted just over 15 years. So I started off volunteering with that and once you get into one group, you get involved with other groups because they say, oh, you’re doing something. Can you help us out with this? And it just snowballed.

 

Interviewer

So how did you get involved with the League of Friends?

Gerry Frobisher

I was getting a bit of a name for myself having been a policeman up to 87, 88, and then got a job with Denbighshire Voluntary Services, working with voluntary groups in Denbighshire. Ann Davies, who was running League of Friends in Prestatyn at the time, collared me at some little event, and said we are after some men <laugh>, because her group was virtually all women. I think there was one man who was the treasurer, and I was asked to go along, and I went along, I think it was about 1999. She had just started what  became an award winning transport scheme, to help people from home to hospital or home to surgery. And it was snowballing. So she needed extra people on the committee. So I went along, and was accepted, and did various roles throughout probably almost 15, 18 years I was there.

Interviewer

So people don’t necessarily always associate Leagues of Friends with GP surgeries. They quite often associate them with hospitals. So what did the League of Friends do at Central Surgery?

Gerry Frobisher

Right,  I think I’ll always boast that it was the only surgery based League of Friends anywhere. I don’t know how true that was, but Ann seemed to know. Prestatyn also had another League of Friends, Chatsworth House Prestatyn Community, which finished roughly about the same time as we did.  That was the sort of community hospital. And Ann was a patient at the central surgery, and she listens, and she talks to people, and she heard that a lot of people were struggling to get from home to surgery. Taxis were too dear, and it was just the fact of calling a taxi, and waiting, and then maybe missing the appointment because the taxi was held up, and she spoke to the doctors, and started up a League of Friends at the surgery.

Interviewer

So was it purely a transport service or did it do anything else as well?

Gerry Frobisher

It was a major fundraiser. The majority of the fundraising was for supporting the car scheme, but a lot of the money went towards actually funding items for the doctors. The doctors would come with a little shopping list, and we would help with paying for those extra little items that would help the patients.

Interviewer

And, and what was your involvement? So Ann dragged you in, what did she drag you in, and what did she get you to do?

Gerry Frobisher

In the end I ended up being the Chairman of the group for several years. We already had a dedicated secretary, and a dedicated treasurer. And Ann was the overall League of Friends of Central Surgery. I think she brought me on just for, I was well known. I was a local counselor during the time I was there. I was probably Mayor twice during the time I was of the League of Friends. So it was all publicity for the League of Friends in a way. I was used by Ann to publicise League of Friends.

Interviewer

So you were a promotional tool really?

Gerry Frobisher

I was a promotional tool, and  I helped with events, and organising events with her

Interviewer

And I mean, I’ve come across Ann for many times over the years, and I associate her particularly with making cards to raise funds.

Gerry Frobisher

Yes. Yes.

Interviewer

Can you think of anything else that you did fundraising wise

Gerry Frobisher

Anne always enjoyed a horse racing evening. We had a long table with a cloth that we would roll out, by vibrating the cloth, the horses ran along. And we used to have about six or seven races in an evening, and it would be anything that was raised with a raffle as well. So that was one of them. And there was always a big Christmas raffle which used to bring in a good thousand pounds plus.  So there was coffee mornings, and there was always a raffle.

Interviewer

Okay. Always a raffle. So it’s like the League of Friends world over. Yes. And do you have any, I mean you’ve touched on various bits, but do you have any particularly favourite memory of volunteering

Gerry Frobisher

At the League of Friends or throughout my life?

Interviewer

Throughout your life,

Gerry Frobisher

The main one I’ve, for the last 36, nearly 40 years now, I’ve always worked with young people in view. Starting off a youth club, and then back in 2009 I was Mayor, and I’d been invited to a youth, a cadet challenge. The High Sheriff had put on this invitation to uniformed youth groups to come to his big estate up by Corwen.  And it was sort of a junior version of, It’s a Knockout. And there was about eight events, and I went along, and I met an old colleague of mine who was just setting up something called Young Dragons with Prince Charles at the time. And it had only just been launched along with Youth United and You London on the 9th of June, 2009. So from September, he said “I’m finishing soon, would you be the Chairman of the Denbighshire group before I leave.

Gerry Frobisher

First meeting we had the leaders of the Army Cadets, Sea Cadets, Air Cadets, Scouts, Guides, Police, Fire Service Cadets, all the way round the table, and they said, “well, we as North Wales Police cover all of North Wales”,  “so do we” said the Fire Service, Scouts,  and Guides said, “well, we’ve got Clywd and Gwynedd”. So from that one first meeting, I became the coordinator of North Wales for Young Dragons. And Young Dragons is basically working with, supporting, and promoting all the uniformed youth groups, and I’ve been coordinating that since 2009, which is now 15 years. Just had our 15th birthday last week. And I get tremendous enjoyment out of organising an event or taking a group of cadets somewhere or meeting up with a group of cadets. If it’s a sort of a local event, I will try and get, I usually say a leader and three cadets because a leader and three is a carload, a leader and three , there’s 10 uniformed youth groups involved. And they’ll turn up and they’ll help with marshalling or whatever’s needed, moving chairs or whatever. And they all meet and say, “look, I didn’t know you were in the Sea Cadets. I didn’t know you were a Scout”,  and they make friends, and they go back, and then they put themselves on Facebook, and what have you. So I think that’s my biggest ongoing proudest volunteering really.

Interviewer

Excellent. So when League of Friends started, we talked about health. That sort of morphed into health and social care, and it’s now morphed into wellbeing realistically as a society. Do you think we still need volunteers to support wellbeing in communities?

Gerry Frobisher

Yes. Big yes. Big capital letters. Years ago, it all used to be, in a way a bit fluffy. People were sadly kept in their bedroom or kept in the house. I remember going to school with a girl my age, and all of a sudden her elder sister who had Down Syndrome suddenly died. She was about two years older, and no one knew about her. And nowadays it’s good we see everyone with any issue they’ve got. We see them now, which is brilliant. But my job now deals with youth, young people who may be in danger of becoming homeless or are homeless, and they still need to go to school, they still need someone to talk to. I deal with a young lad who was homeless. He’s 12 now, and the family was homeless, living in a 12 foot square bed & breakfast room where they couldn’t have a microwave, couldn’t have a proper kettle because the steam set the alarms off.

Gerry Frobisher

And now, thankfully after six months while I worked with him, the County Council found a home for them, or not a home, a house which they’ve made into a home. And I said, do you still want to see me? Almost a year now since they’ve got the house, and he says yes, because my dad had a bad accident, and he can’t jump around because he’s damaged his legs. You, are like my dad because you play pool with me, you kick a football with me, you play dodge ball with me, you move around. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So it’s in a way I’m not tied to him, but I only see him two, two hours a week. And in that two hours he runs me a ragged. And there’s another one who I say, why do you want to see me? Because you’re the only adult I get a chance to talk to, which is sad, which is bad for their wellbeing. I say, what about your mum? Well, no, I can’t talk to her like I talk to you. And what about your dad and his new wife? Well, no, I don’t see much of him once a week. And I don’t get a chance to sit down for an hour or so and talk about football or rugby or whatever. It’s wellbeing. It’s mental health that is out there all the time.

Interviewer

So I’m hearing a huge amount of difference that a bit of time can make for other people in the community.

Gerry Frobisher

Yes, I do a youth club as well. We’ve got some 13, 14-year-old girls who don’t really dress like they should dress,  if it’s sunny, they’re almost in a bikini when they come to us, and they’re quite feral. But they’ll come in, and then after about five or 10 minutes they’ve calmed down, they’ll sit around a table and they’ll make beads or make cards or crayon or talk, and then once the youth group’s finished, they’re outside, and they’re feral again. But for that hour and a half or so, they are them, that’s who they are. We get a giggle out of them, we get a look in their eye, yes, I enjoy doing this. So that’s wellbeing, which they won’t get at home. It’s hard.

Interviewer

So if I was somebody who was listening to this, and I’d thought about volunteering, but I wasn’t really sure where to start or what might be a good thing to do, what would your message be to me?

Gerry Frobisher

Bear in mind what they like doing. There are several, 20, 30 probably little organisations, voluntary organisations in our local hospital. From pushing the trolley around taking, not necessarily cups of tea, but a book or the newspaper or whatever. There’s the cafe, which is usually run by a group of volunteers, or a shop, or there’s an organisation which I actually helped set up called the Robins up in Glan Clywd Hospital, which are ward volunteers.  Little Mrs. Jones doesn’t get any visitors, so during visiting time, maybe a Robin will sit with her, and keep her company so she’s not left out. Or a Robin will say, “I’ll go and pick that up” instead of the patient trying to get the eye of the nurse. Yes. Go to the local organisation or go to somewhere like the local volunteer council, like Denbighshire Volunteer Service in, in this case, or every county has one.

Interviewer

Okay. Thank you.