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Our job is to run Abbeyfield House, which is supported sheltered accommodation, and oversee the health and happiness of residents by making sure they are well fed, and cared for, writes Avril Vallance.

Our 10 residents have their own bedsitting room and bathroom and facilities to make breakfast and snacks. We provide two home-cooked meals a day in the dining room.

We liaise with residents' families about health and other issues, will collect prescriptions, sit and chat, offer comfort and support and so on. We don't provide personal care, as Abbeyfield House is not a care home but we will help organise care staff to come in if our frailer residents need help with bathing, dressing and so on.


Residents tend to be in their late eighties when they join us, with many in their nineties and older. Freed from the burden of cooking and running a house, they often lead active lives.

Doreen came into the job by accident as a cleaner, then a few months later was asked to be the deputy housekeeper because she had experience of cooking. That was 12 years ago.

I arrived three years later and Doreen and I hit it off straight away and as well as being colleagues became good friends.

The residents are lovely people. Overall, everyone gets on well and there is lots of laughter and talk. But it can be difficult at times, as every resident has a unique background and ideas, but with diplomacy something can be sorted out.


Doreen and I are rarely called out during the night. Sometimes a resident has to move to another home for extra care or someone passes away, a time of great sadness for us.

We get training from seminars and courses throughout the year on care and safety for the house and we also have an Abbeyfield volunteers committee to help.

To do our job you need patience, diplomacy, humour and love.