West Suffolk Hospital’s £25,000 dementia walk set for launch

Eye-catching pictures from Bury St Edmunds’ past adorn the walls of the Forget-Me-Not corridor at West Suffolk Hospital, a community project that has captured the imagination.

The dementia walk is designed to invoke memories of the past for people living with the condition.

An appeal to raise £25,000 has seen its target smashed. Ahead of the corridor’s official launch on Friday, the current total is closing in on £95,000.

My WiSH charity’s Forget-Me-Not Walk project manager Dave Gooderham said everyone was “blown away” by people’s generosity.

He emphasised that after raising its £25,000 for the walk, the remaining money was now going towards other dementia projects at the hospital.

“We’re now looking at other areas of the hospital that we can improve for patients with dementia,” he said.

The campaign has coincided neatly with the launch of an incredibly popular Facebook group We Love Bury St Edmunds! The site has seen thousands of people sharing their memories of Bury from days gone by.

“We Love Bury St Edmunds came up and suddenly all these lovely old photos came in from that. We had several generous donations from that local photographers who have given us these amazing photos we didn’t know existed,” said Mr Gooderham.

In addition, he said there were pictures from all over west Suffolk, on show. At Friday’s launch, author Nicci Gerrard will cut the ribbon along with Joyce Dainty, from Hawstead.

Nicci launched John’s Campaign, aiming to transform dementia care and Joyce was the very first person to donate money to the campaign.

Dave added: “The East Anglian Daily Times and Mercury series have been incredibly generous not just supporting the campaign from day one but allowing me to delve into the archive.”

He also thanked local photographer Andy Abbott, who has 40 years’ experience photographing west Suffolk.