Sporting legend, Steve Cram visits hospice
Patients at St Catherine’s Hospice were treated to a VIP visit by Olympic silver medallist, three time world record holder and Chief Athletics Commentator for the BBC, Steve Cram CBE, last week.
Steve visited Day Hospice patients attending St Catherine’s Movers and Shakers exercise class and spoke to them about his impressive sporting career before taking part in a question and answer session where patients grilled him about disability sport amongst other things. Steve also took part in exercises, such as weight lifting, with patients and spoke about the importance of keeping active.
Patient, Ken Gurd, said: “I had a chat with Steve about the Olympics. I thought it was excellent he joined in the exercises with us, he was a real team player.”
During his visit, Steve also met with a patient staying on St Catherine’s Inpatient Unit to learn about the care he’s received from the local hospice.
Recognised as one of the finest athletes of his generation, retired track and field athlete Steve, is a world, Olympic, European and Commonwealth medallist. Nicknamed “The Jarrow Arrow” he was the first man to run 1500m in under three minutes and 30 seconds.
His hospice visit was organised by Clydesdale Bank, a corporate supporter of St Catherine’s, who also selected the hospice as their charity of the year at their annual networking event. Justin Ellis from Clydesdale accompanied Steve on his visit to St Catherine’s. He said: “It was great to arrange for Steve to visit St Catherine’s, which does such vital work caring for terminally ill people and their family and friends in our local community. We hope the patients enjoyed Steve’s visit and look forward to continuing to work with St Catherine’s.”
Sarah Achuccaro, Corporate Development Fundraiser at St Catherine’s, said: “We’re really grateful to Steve and Clydesdale Bank for providing such a special visit for our patients. It’s visits like these that help to lift our patients spirits.”
If you would like to find out more about how you can support St Catherine’s please visit call St Catherine’s Fundraising Team on: 01293 447361 or email: comfun@stch.org.uk
