A kind-hearted Ilkley resident has crocheted her 100th ‘wellbeing blanket’ for the babies of Bradford Royal Infirmary’s (BRI) maternity unit.
Eliz Sandalls’ landmark donation is all the more remarkable as she is registered blind.
To celebrate her special donation, Bradford midwives, Sophie Wainman and colleague, Katie Hurley, recently visited Eliz at Abbeydale Residential Care Home, on Grove Road, where she lives, to thank Eliz personally for her remarkable gifts. They also presented her with a hamper of treats as a thank you.
Sophie said:
Every time we get a donation of crocheted blankets from Eliz we are astonished at the craftsmanship and we love them as they are especially warm and snuggly for our babies.
The blankets are of outstanding quality and Eliz provides all the wool herself. Each blanket comes gift-wrapped in individual bags and the mums on our maternity wards are absolutely delighted to receive the blankets as they brighten the babies’ cots, as well as our hospital wards and environment. They bring such a personal touch and we are forever grateful to Eliz for her donations.
It was also lovely to meet Eliz in person and she was surprised and delighted when we popped in with the hamper that we stayed for well over an hour chatting and finding out more about her and why she does this for our babies.
Eliz, who is originally from Bourne End in Buckinghamshire, came to live in Ilkley in 2021 to be closer to her only daughter, after her husband died.
She lost sight in her right eye in 1987 and experienced further serious problems in her left eye in 2023. She underwent surgery at Bradford Royal Infirmary which helped to preserve some of her remaining sight.
While my vision is still limited, it allows me to continue with my crocheting and I am forever grateful to the BRI and surgeon, Helen Devonport, for saving some of my sight.
Eliz continued:
Crocheting gives me something to do as I can’t see to read books and talking books tend to send me to sleep, but I’m very active, I enjoy walking and I like to crochet.
Abbeydale buys 20% of my wool and I buy the rest. I love walking into Ilkley to get the wool at Boyes shop and Tesco in Ilkley kindly donated their recycling bags, so I place each of the blankets into one of the bags, Jez picks them up and leaves them at Sophie’s house for her to take into the maternity unit.
I get so much satisfaction knowing the blankets are going to good homes. They look really nice and are comfort blankets for little people as babies are not babies for long and from 18-months-old they like blankets for comfort.
It brings me great joy as I don’t have any grandchildren. In my younger years, I was always involved in youth groups, from taking Sunday School classes to being ‘Arkela’ (leader) in the Cub Scouts and an officer in the Girls Brigade.
Each blanket is two-foot square and takes 2.8 days precisely for Eliz to crochet it.
Eliz added:
I was so surprised when the midwives came to visit me – we had a great chat and the hamper was so lovely. I especially enjoyed the chocolate.
It was a good job that I was at home when they called as I like to go out and about.
I really do believe if you don’t use it, you lose it and I intend to carry on crocheting the wellbeing blankets for a long time to come. It’s so lovely to give something back to the hospital and to the babies.
