Husband fulfils late wife's wish to help abuse victims

A husband has fulfilled his late wife's wish for toiletry washbags she made before she died to be given to domestic abuse victims.

Julie Parsons from Staffordshire made about 25 bags which she planned to fill with essential items for victims but died in 2021.

They remained in the home she lived in with her husband Rod, but after a staff member from a Wolverhampton domestic abuse charity recently stayed at his Airbnb, they "got chatting" and Rod has now been able to donate them.

"It was really nice and I was really pleased to pass them on for the reason they were made in the first place, rather than just sitting in the back of a wardrobe," Rod said.

While being treated for familial pancreatitis in hospital in Liverpool in 2018, Julie, from Gnosall, shared a ward with a woman who was there "with the clothes she was stood up in".

"My dear wife, when I was visiting was sending me out for bars and soap and toothpaste and it came from that really," he said.

"She decided, because she was a quilter, that she would make these bags.

"She was progressively ill then and getting worse really."

Julie had had her pancreas removed in the 90s but suffered complications over the years since then, he said, which resulted in several long stays in various hospitals before her death.

"Now I look back at it, I don't think I appreciated it that much at the time," he added.

"She was so ill herself, while she was really thinking about everybody else around her [which] was probably a very good thing as it would have taken her mind off things."

However, in June, Emma Sweeney, a domestic abuse practitioner from The Haven charity in Wolverhampton completed a 68.5 mile (109 km) solo fundraising walk along the Shropshire Union Canal and by chance, stayed at Rod's Airbnb in Gnosall.

"She was telling me what she did and it just fitted into place," he said.

"I said 'yeh, that's what she wanted them for.'"

He donated seven of the washbags after some had been shared within the family.

They have since been filled with toiletry and pamper item donations and given to women being helped by the charity.

Anna Pendlebury, head of fundraising and engagement at the charity which helps women and children, said: "We are so grateful to Rod, and his late wife Julie, for the heartfelt donation.

"The fact we were able to fulfil Julie's wish to support women affected by domestic abuse is a real honour.

"Not only that, if it wasn't for Emma's fundraising challenge, this kind gift to us probably wouldn't have happened."

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