Barbara’s our heart and soul

 

Barbara Guffick, 94, has volunteered for York Against Cancer almost from the day it started back in 1987.

Originally from Leamington Spa, she came to York in around 1948, when she married a Yorkshireman.

A mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, Barbara worked in an office until she had her daughter, Susan, and in a range of different jobs including working on nurses’ uniforms at the former County Hospital and at York Hospital, retiring aged 59.

Barbara was a volunteer at the National Trust at around the time our charity was founded, and someone she met there suggested that she might like to help our fledgling charity, too.

First she lent a hand with York Against Cancer’s street collections, then went on to help at the hospital stall and at our shop in Huntington. Barbara is now the charity’s oldest and longest-serving volunteer.

“I think it’s wonderful that there is such good work going on through the charity,” said Barbara. “From the volunteering point of view, it is also very good; all the people that you meet, and the friends that you make.

“I have definitely enjoyed the volunteering - it’s kept me going all these years! I have certainly been very busy, especially in the shop.”

Barbara was delighted when York Against Cancer’s volunteers were presented with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.

The highest award of its kind in the country, it is the equivalent of an MBE and Barbara was asked to receive the honour from the Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire, Barry Dodd CBE, alongside Pat Leveson, wife of the charity’s founder and chairman Professor Steve Leveson.

“It was a very big surprise when we won the Queen’s Award,” said Barbara. “I thought it was wonderful. There’s a lot of people who have worked for us for such a long time. It was a lovely evening, I enjoyed it very much.”

Barbara appreciates seeing the results of her efforts translated into action to help local people living with cancer.

“I think the bus taking people for radiotherapy must have made an awful lot of difference and also the Cancer Care Centre, where patients go and talk to people: it’s very good and they seem to be nice people there. It does make a difference that it is for local people.”

Barbara may be 94, but she shows no sign of giving up on her volunteering ways. “I have no thoughts of retiring – not at the moment, anyway!”

Julie Russell, our general manager, said Barbara had given truly great service to York Against Cancer. “She’s the heart and soul of our charity,” she said. “We just couldn’t do without people like her.”