Interviewer

So can you start off by telling us your name, your age, and what member group you’re representing today?

 

Rosie Durham:

Yes. So I’m Rosie Durham, I’m 41, and the volunteering I did was with Friends of One Tower Bridge Road.

 

Interviewer: 

What first inspired you to get involved with One Tower Bridge Road?

 

Rosie Durham:

So, it was about – I’ve lost track now – eight or nine years ago. I took a year off work and I wanted to do lots of travelling and volunteer work. So I was looking for volunteer opportunities and I’d always had quite an affinity with working with intergenerational charities. I’d grown up with my grandma living with us. I spent a lot of time with older people, so working with older people, particularly in care homes and people with dementia, was something that appealed to me. So, when I was looking for volunteer opportunities, I saw that Attend obviously were talking about these Friends Groups and I thought that sounded perfect for what I wanted, which was a sort of once a week opportunity to go into a care home and try and support people as best I could. And that’s where it started. And then when I met David and Nichole and everyone, I just loved the sound of the projects and went from there.

Interviewer

So how would you say your role at One Tower Bridge Road has kind of evolved over time?

 

Rosie Durham

So, I did about six months of going in every week. I would go in every Wednesday. I did briefly visit another care home as well in Camberwell, but that closed down. So most of my volunteering was around Tower Bridge Road and I would go in and sometimes I’d give the residents manicures or I would just sit and talk to them. Then, that kind of evolved into little afternoon tea parties. Sometimes we’d listen to music and some people might do a bit of singing, which was really lovely. Particularly, the Dementia patients sort of wouldn’t say anything but then would sing every lyric of a song, which was amazing. And sometimes it was just me. Sometimes there’d be other volunteers. It was great. Some weeks there were loads of engagement. Other weeks it was harder and some of the residents were struggling. So, it had its peaks and troughs, but it was generally this really wonderful experience and I was able to do that every week because I wasn’t working. That was always a temporary thing and I didn’t live that near the care home. So, after my year off, I had to stop going in every week. But, I didn’t want to lose my connection with the charity, so I ended up actually working in the head office for Attend and helping with some finance stuff because I’m an accountant. I was helping them with some of their little bits of finance behind the scenes. And then once my year off work completely finished and I had to go get a real job, David asked me to stay on and be the independent examiner for all of the little “Friends of…” groups and also to be on the board for Friends of One Tower Bridge Road. So, since – whatever year it was, I lose track, 2015 I think – I’ve been the treasurer of One Tower Bridge Road. So although I don’t get the opportunity to go into the Care Home because I don’t live anywhere near it, I’ve kept my connection through being on the board and having regular meetings and getting to help with the accounts and give input from a finance perspective.

Interviewer:

 

Had you had any volunteering experience before One Tower Bridge Road?

 

Rosie Durham: 

I’d done a bit when I was younger, but that was working in a swan sanctuary with swans. So nothing remotely close to working with older people. I’d done a little bit of things at university so I was part of Amnesty International, so I did some letter writing campaign and things like that. But other than that, and again the odd bit of volunteering through my job where we’d sort of do corporate volunteering, I hadn’t done any sort of committed long-term direct volunteering with older people.

Interviewer:

Now as someone who has devoted so much time to volunteering, do you have any advice for new volunteers or words of wisdom for people who are looking to start volunteering?

 

Rosie Durham: 

Yes, I think. I mean there’s lots I can say. So, I think in terms of whether or not to do it: do it. It has fundamentally changed my life. By volunteering at Attend, that got me into the headspace of definitely wanting to work permanently in the charity sector. I’d sort of been on the fence and then just working behind the scenes on the accounts for Attend made me think, “Oh maybe I should move out of the corporate world into the charity world.” It had been on my mind, but that sort of cemented it for me. So, by that volunteer work I got the passion for the charity sector. I’ve now worked at Cancer Research UK ever since. So I sort of, after my year off, got my job at Cancer Research UK and I’m now in a job I absolutely love. I love working in the charity sector and I don’t think I’d necessarily be where I am now if I hadn’t had that experience. So it started my passion, which also fueled my career. I’ve also, in the meantime, my sister set up an intergenerational charity and all of my experience from volunteering, care homes, and my sort of charity finance background have helped me support her in that. And even since, I think in the last six months, I’ve managed to get my sister’s charity and friends of Tower Bridge Road to work together, which has been amazing. So, volunteering can absolutely give you potential opportunities in the rest of your life as well. It’s not just something you’re doing necessarily for the people you’re helping, it can actually help you as well. So there’s that side of it. There’s also just the incredible growth it can give you as a person. I think obviously helping other people just inherently makes you feel good. So there’s that side of it and you sort of feel like you’re contributing to society, which is really important given the state of the world. But I also think it really helps your confidence. I’m not gonna lie, it was scary going into a care home, working with older people who I didn’t know – some of whom had quite complex needs, particularly with dementia. It’s not for the fainthearted, it can be difficult. You had to sort of think on your feet, deal with sometimes quite awkward situations. There were always people to support me. I never felt unsupported but it was sometimes challenging. That’s what made it so rewarding because I was like ‘Wow, I’ve actually really used my initiative here. I’ve really helped someone. I’ve been with someone when they’ve been really lonely and if I wasn’t here they wouldn’t have anyone.” And I think that just really helped me grow in my confidence. So I think my advice would be, to do it. No, it might not always be completely comfortable every minute of the day but that’s kind of what makes it so special.

Interviewer: 

Wow, that’s beautiful. So you’ve kind of touched a little bit on the intergenerational aspect of One Tower Bridge Road. Can you explain a little bit about what that means in the context of this charity and how an intergenerational charity is helpful to different generations?

 

Rosie Durham: 

Yes, of course. I think intergenerational work is so important. That’s why my sister set up a charity dedicated to it. And I think it’s easy to just think of it as younger people like me going into care homes and helping lonely people with dementia. And of course there’s an aspect of it that you’re there to support people. But, I think it’s really important to kind of think of it as like a reciprocal thing because it’s not just me helping them, it’s actually them helping me. Because if you are chatting to someone who’s in their seventies, eighties, nineties, they’ve lived their life, they’ve seen stuff, they have a really fresh perspective on things that I don’t have. So I actually genuinely got a lot out of it myself since 2015.

I also signed up with, it was the Silver Line at the time, but it’s now Age UK where I do a weekly phone call with an older person. And we’ve now been chatting for nine years and I speak to her every week and she’s 96 and I had no idea it was going to last nine years when I signed up. But again, she’s 96, I’m now 41 – I was 32 when I started. You wouldn’t think we would have that much in common. And yet, every single week we manage to talk about something and, yes, she’s 96, but sometimes when we’re talking, I feel like I could be chatting to a friend or someone who’s just exactly my age. It just made me realize I think it’s really easy to think of older people as very different.

Whereas I think most older people will say they feel like a 15-year-old inside. I don’t think anyone ever really feels like a grownup. And it’s not really until different generations spend time together on a real human level that you start to realise that. I think it’s really important to kind of break down those barriers and just realise that deep, deep down everyone’s the same. And I think yeah, I can learn from them, they can learn from me, I can get different perspectives on things and I think it helps keep older people young if they’ve got younger generations to deal with. And as I said, I think younger generations can kind of learn from people who’ve been there before. We all like to think that the world changes. I don’t really think it does. I think ultimately people are the same no matter what generation they’re in.

Interviewer

Yes. Do you have any specific favourite memories or a certain story you could tell that gives a little bit of insight into your time at One Tower Bridge Road?

 

Rosie Durham

Yes, there’s a couple. So my favourite resident – I shouldn’t have a favourite, but my favourite resident – was a lady called Rosina and people kind of called her Rosie and obviously that’s my name. So, that instantly made me warm to her because we had the same name. She was just so sweet and lovely and very early on I kind of started talking to her every week. So we formed a bit of a friendship and it wasn’t without its challenges, that friendship. She had dementia, so sometimes she’d get angry almost at me, not in a scary way, but she’d sort of snap at me or something or she’d get a bit confused and want to leave the care home because she didn’t know where she was. And those times were quite difficult but they were very few and far between. Most of the time it was we’d just sit and talk and we’d sing songs. And I remember I was sitting with her and there was another volunteer with me on this particular occasion. Me and this other volunteer were chatting and Rosina was joining in and she said, “God, I just feel alive when you two are here.” And I thought, “Oh wow.” I mean that’s really depressing that half an hour of my time is the only thing that makes me feel alive, but thank God I’m here because if I wasn’t – wow.
So that was really special and I remember once she just looked at me and said, “You’re the only person who really understands me. “And I was like, “Oh God.” So that was lovely. But, yes, kind of heartbreaking and sort of bittersweet. That sort of relationship really sticks with me and I often think of her. I found out she’d passed away a few years after I left the care home, which was very sad. but obviously she was pretty near the end of her life when we met her. Another really lovely memory was the day that we were playing some music and I think “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” came on. This gentleman, who I don’t think had spoken a word, sort of shuffled into the room on a Zimmer frame looking just very, very low and like he wasn’t gonna really engage at all. And obviously my heart went out to him but he was just sitting there and then the music came on and then he started singing and he sang every word perfectly of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” And, oh my God, obviously I was welling up because it’s such a beautiful song.

I think that really illustrates the power of music and memory and being together that he could sit in a room and suddenly have a moment where his brain engaged in a completely normal way. And he probably just felt like he was back 50 years ago listening to that song. It was just so lovely to think that I was able to be there for that.

Interviewer

Those are good stories. Those are all my questions for you. Is there anything else you would like to add or have people know about you or One Tower Bridge Road?

 

Rosie Durham

My main thing to say to people is volunteering, as I said, is so important. If people don’t do it then society just misses out on so much. We could all pretend that we have a government or a societal structure that supports people. It doesn’t. I think most of the support that people get is from each other and from the community. And I don’t think we have the type of community now that maybe we did 50 years ago. So I think the volunteer sector is so important on like a personal level to give that kind of connection to people. And also now as someone who works for a charity, charities need volunteers because we can’t pay for all of these things. So if you are volunteering, it’s the same as donating money, you’re donating your time, it’s just as useful. So I think it’s needed from just a purely like ethical, moral thing. I think we should all be doing this if we can. If you are lucky enough to have time or resources. But even if you ignore the moral “We should be doing this,” I would say you should do it totally selfishly as well because it really genuinely made me, I think, a kinder, more compassionate person. It challenged me in a good way. If it was difficult at times, then it just made me stronger and more confident. And as I said, for me it kind of put me on this path of now working for charity and helping my sister run a charity. And it’s kind of shown me that actually money and things like that really aren’t that important in the grand scheme of things. And actually like connecting with people and helping other people is so much more satisfying. So yeah, I would say to anyone to do it. Give it a go because what have you got to lose?

 

Interviewer: 

I think that’s a great note to end on.