A SPIRITED Walney pensioner's plan to launch a trust fund for families who have to travel hundreds of miles to see their ill loved ones has been given a financial boost from a pie and peas night.

With the help of her son Paul Bazley, 53 and Barrow borough councillor Michael Cassells, Madge Bazley, 85, hosted a charity night at the Lisdoonie Hotel in Barrow on Friday which raised £1,400 to help towards the launch of the Barrow Carer's Travel Trust Fund.

Mrs Bazley, who lives in West Shore Park, Walney, was inspired to create the fund after she went public about her struggle to see her dementia-stricken husband Eric, who is having to be cared for at the Priory in Dewsbury due to a lack of services in South Cumbria.

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She still has to make a 250-mile round trip to Yorkshire to see her husband but has been encouraged by the state-of-the-art facilities he is staying in and the financial support that has been given to help her with the journey.

Mrs Bazley said: "He's in a wonderful place which is absolutely gorgeous. He gets wonderful care and all the nurse love him too. I have told him that I don't want them to bring him back to Barrow because we just haven't got the facilities.

"It has been a hard journey but I hope this fund will help other people so they don't have to go through what I went through."

Mrs Bazley, who has been married to Eric for more than 60 years, initially faced a trip to Middlesbrough to see her husband before he was given a place at the newly-opened Dewsbury care home.

She has now come to terms with her husband being in Dewsbury but still wants to make people aware of her travelling dilemma.

She added: "I said 'how can I afford to get there?' And they said that he will have his pension, but then I thought how will I afford to get a roof over his head.

"Then they decided on Dewsbury and I thought what if I need to get there in an emergency? I was fuming so that's why I decided to go public and write to the Evening Mail."

Mrs Bazley's decision to go public outlined the severe lack of facilities in South Cumbria for people who need specialist care for dementia.

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It encouraged Kath Cullen from Dalton to highlight how her partner, Michael Beer, had to reside in a care home in Blackpool because there were no facilities for people with dementia in the Furness area.

Cllr Cassells said: "Madge has been great and through her publicity we've been able to embarrass the Cumbria Partnership Trust into giving her financial help.

"However, that is not an offer that everybody gets so part of our rationale is to get evidence of people affected to identify that there is a real problem here in South Cumbria."