5. Major John Greener

A founding trustee and the first chairman, Major John Greener’s vision and inspiring personality was the driving force for the creation of the hospice.

Following careers in the Army and the City, he moved to Dorset in the late 1970s and his skills in logistics and fundraising led him to get involved in the Winterbourne Hospital and Dorset Health Trust. As Dame Dione Digby remembers “He soon made himself known, he was a man who was passionate about doing good for the community in general. He was one of those amazing individuals that just enthused people to do things that really matter, and of course, he got right in there himself.”

As chairman of Dorset Health Trust, he led an initiative to raise over a million pounds for Dorset Children’s Centre, and then, inspired by the work of Dame Cicely Saunders, he turned his attention to building a hospice to provide end of life care. He described raising the funds as a “mammoth task” as it required five times the amount of the previous appeal, but he said at the time that “magnificent support has come from all over Dorset.”

John took part in a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Spain which helped to raise over £50,000, funding education for doctors to enable pain free end of life instead of excessive drug use to extend life. Dame Dione Digby accompanied John, and says, “That was John’s initiative. John had cancer by then, and he was brave enough to come to lead that pilgrimage. He was an amazing man.”

The eponymous John Greener Room was named in honour of his incredible work, and is home to a variety of wellbeing sessions for patients, bereaved relatives, and carers.

John died in the hospice just a matter of months after the doors opened, but not before he, the trustees and staff proudly welcomed the then Prince of Wales for a ‘magical’ visit. His final meeting as Chair was just a day before he died.

Caroline Nickinson, founder and former Director of Fundraising, said: “I visited John Greener in the hospice and he said to me ‘Caroline, this is good, this is what we wanted to do’ and I shall never ever forget that.”