Background information on Leonard Cheshire and The Leonard Cheshire Organisation.

Introduction.

Our class had a talk with Sonia Chapple, the care manager of the Leonard Cheshire West Devon Enabling Scheme to gain more information about how an organisation like this fits into the national framework.

In this discussion the following topics were covered-the history of the foundation, hierarchy, funding, demographic characteristics and how the scheme fits into the national framework.

Leonard Cheshire was born in Chester in 1917, the son of Geoffrey Cheshire, Professor of Law at Oxford. He was commissioned into the Royal Air Force on the outbreak of World War Two. He was the most decorated bomber pilot in the Royal Air Force and had three Distinguished Service Orders (with two bars), a Distinguished Flying Cross and the Victoria Cross. On his 101st mission over enemy territory, on August 9th 1945, at the age of 27; he became an official observer at the dropping of the second nuclear bomb of the war on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. This was a major turning point in his life and he flew back to Marianas a changed man. From that time on his inner feelings were those of saving lives rather than taking them.

In 1959 he married Susan Ryder- the founder of her own charity, Sue Ryder Care.

But it was his deeds after the war, which proved more rewarding when he established an organisation, which was to become the internationally acclaimed Leonard Cheshire Foundation, which cares and provides homes for many thousands of disabled individuals throughout the world.

As Cheshire wrote in his autobiography: - "It all started for me quite innocently with a telephone call. A pleasant voice announced the matron of the hospital in Petersfield and said that Mr Arthur Dykes, with whom she understood I was acquainted, was lying in hospital suffering from an advanced stage of cancer. It would be helpful, said the matron, if I could come to see her."

"I might have been excused for being slow on the uptake, for quite apart from the general worry and confusion of the situation in which I found myself, I had known the man not as 'Dykes' but simply as Arthur, and I had not really known him very well at that. I put on the best face I could, however, and agreed to call at the following morning".

"On my first visit to the hospital, Matron told me that I was on no account to give Arthur the slightest hint that his cancer was incurable and that he was dying. Arthur sensed he was in the way, and in an effort to resolve the hospital's problem he asked me if I could let him have a small piece of land on which to put a caravan. He said that he had just enough money to buy one and that, once on his feet, he was sure he could manage. His words did not carry much conviction, but I felt so ill at ease having to keep up a continued pretence that, after much thought, I finally decided I must tell him the truth. To my astonishment I saw a look of relief spread across his face. 'Thank you Len for letting me know. It's not knowing that is the worst of all'".

From then on it was inconceivable that Cheshire should fail to find a place for Arthur and invited him to live at an empty house called 'Le Court' that he had bought cheaply from an aunt. For the next few months Cheshire acted as nurse, companion and friend to the old airman and by growing vegetables himself was able to keep both of them well fed, warm and alive. He learned about nursing as he went along, and was always cheerfully prepared to ring the local hospital if snags occurred. So it was that Cheshire's second patient arrived in the shape of a 94-year-old bed-ridden wife of an invalid who could cope no longer. Cheshire remembers her arrival on a stretcher and wearing her best hat complete with spectacular feather. "Funny way to be dressed when you're on a stretcher" he thought.

Arthur died shortly afterwards in the summer of 1948 but the die was cast. By this time Le Court held 24 people suffering from a wide range of disabilities and diseases and it soon became clear to Cheshire that the demand for places was not just confined to that part of the country. So another home, St. Teresa’s, was started in Cornwall and as a result of his contracting TB he was forced to set up a charitable foundation to help with the running of the two homes.

In 1955, the first overseas home was established, in Bombay, India. The work started by Leonard Cheshire continues today in Africa, the Far East, Europe (including Russia), the USA, Canada, South America, India and the Caribbean.

When he died on the 31st of July 1992, aged 74, there were 227 Cheshire Homes throughout the world with 77 in Britain alone. The Leonard Cheshire Foundation has grown to become the largest private organisation in the world looking after the physically handicapped whenever and wherever they need help.