Rachel had been diagnosed with cancer when she was six, had been successfully treated and then, when she was 12 years old, the cancer returned.
When Bernadette first visited Rachel and her mum Maureen, they were in a terrible state. Rachel had checked out of the hospital, against her doctors’ wishes, to die at home surrounded by her family. Her local GP refused to treat her, she had no pain relief drugs and she was in excruciating pain.
Bernadette recalled: “Rachel was adamant that she wanted to go home and so her mother discharged her. That same afternoon I visited Rachel for the first time. It was to be the beginning of a most beautiful friendship.”
Bernadette was there to help and support Rachel and Maureen, comforting both during the final weeks and consoling Maureen when Rachel died.
Word spread of Bernadette’s kindness and within months she had more requests for help than she could cover on her own.
Bernadette set up Rainbow Trust in 1986, working firstly around her kitchen table and then from a shed at the bottom of her garden. She and her husband Dennis personally funded all of her travel and visits to families with a seriously ill child while friends pitched in and supported her, trying to help as many families as she could. To help with the requests they trained Family Support Workers to provide the same care and compassion she had given to Rachel.
Dennis remembers: “Every night after dinner we would sit around the kitchen table and discuss how to move on. What structure did we need, what documentation, what procedures to put in place, how to support staff and, of course, how did we intend to fund the whole project.
