A million thanks

Ready to put his feet up... hospice fundraiser Brian Hurst gets ready for retirement

Hospice’s champion fundraiser Brian to retire
THE man known throughout the borough as the face of Dr Kershaw’s Hospice is about to put up his feet and bow out of public life.

Brian Hurst has dedicated his life to raising millions of pounds for the Royton hospice since he was made redundant from delivering beer to pubs as a drayman.

His job at the helm of the fundraising team has seen it rake in around £10 million in the 13-and-a-half years since he became its first full-time fundraiser.

It is a position which has become a way of life for him, taking him out many nights a week and at weekends to support fundraising events and to pick up cheques. And it is a job he said would have been impossible to do without the unstinting support of his wife, Laurie.

It was through her that he first became involved with Dr Kershaw’s, after her mother, Lilian, died at the hospice.

Laurie and her sister, Barbara, took over the running of what was then a small annual garden party as a way of saying thank-you for the care given to their mother. Brian was roped in to help when he met the then medical director Dr Kevin Moore, who told of ambitious plans to expand, but said there was no money to pay for it. Brian took on the challenge, and said: “I knew I would be able to make a difference,” but he was quite unprepared for the enormous response he would get from Oldham people who have tipped up incredible amounts of money to the cause year after year.

“I started slowly, putting money boxes in pubs and clubs, then more and more people began to organise events and we set up a fundraising committee,” he said.

“I had some happy times, and some times of doubt, when I wondered how on earth we were going to raise around £1 million a year.”

The hospice now has four shops, runs its own lottery, has four full-time fundraisers, and a 270-strong army of volunteers, all committed to the cause.

Yet Brian is the first to acknowledge: “It’s a phenomenal target to raise £88,000 a month, and it gets harder every year.”

Brian said his involvement with the hospice had undoubtedly changed his life, and introduced him to some of Oldham’s richest characters, like the late “Dobbyhorse Vera” Smith. “She was a diamond, we will never see another Vera,” he said.

He has seen generosity beyond compare, with massive amounts of money left in wills, including £480,000 from former Oldham head teacher Edith Catanach.

And he has spearheaded campaigns like last year’s Alex the Meerkat, who travelled across the globe after capturing the hearts and imagination of people the length and breadth of the borough.

Brian’s motto, which is the foundation to his success is: “Make sure everyone enjoys what they are doing, be fair, and they will come back with another fundraiser.

“Oldham is not the wealthiest part of the country, but the support we get is incredible. We would not have been able to keep the hospice running without that unfailing support.”

Brian will leave his post at the end of June, as he turns 67, and vowed to continue to help out in some capacity.

“I don’t know what that will be yet, but I would miss it too much not to,”

he said. “It’s time to hand over the reins. The job has changed - it’s all twitter and facebook, reports and projections - not at all what I am used to.

“I has never seemed like work to me. We are like one big family, we have a laugh and I have enjoyed it.”

But he also admitted patients in the hospice had had a huge impact on his life.

“Seeing how some people have to suffer is very humbling,” he said.

“When you see what they have to put up with, and many of them are young people, it stops you moaning and groaning about things that don’t matter.

“I feel privileged to have met them. All the veneer of life in general disappears, and what you see is the real person underneath.”

Brian, who lives in Failsworth, has one daughter, Nicola, who lives in Bradford, and one grandchild, James (3).

He has no plans for his retirement yet other than to: “put up my feet and have a bit of a rest.”