16. Danny Collins

If one person has managed to carve out their own niche in fundraising for Weldmar, it’s Danny Collins. Now in his 80s, Danny has been fixing up and selling unwanted bicycles for the best part of twenty years from his home on Dorchester Road in Weymouth, raising in excess of £40,000.

Danny, and members of the charity’s Weymouth Friends group, used to hold regular sales on his driveway. A lady turned up one week asking if they would sell a little bike. Danny put it out front, and it sold for £25. He put a ‘second hand bikes wanted’ sign up, and the rest is history.

Danny’s mother was cared for at the former Trimar Hospice at Greenhill, a day hospice that later became part of Weldmar Hospicecare. His friend, Margaret, whom Danny first met in 1997, was an active member of Weymouth Friends and he helped her with fundraising – including those driveway sales – and was there during her own final moments at the Inpatient Unit in Dorchester. He remembers fondly how a nurse placed a rose on one side of her bed, and a candle the other.

“I really enjoy what I do with the bikes,” Danny told us, “and that’s the most important thing with any kind of volunteering. You can see how it makes a lot of people happy. A man came by and said his young son wanted to buy a bike and had been saving up his pocket money. He was so pleased about buying this bike for £25 and kept saying ‘thank you, thank you’.”

Thank you, Danny!