A historic home in Wrexham is celebrating 60 years of caring for older people.<\/p>\n
Hillbury House was built in 1864 on five acres of land on the south west of the city for local businessman John Bury.<\/p>\n
It became a care home in 1965 when it was taken over by the Catholic Order of the Sisters of Nazareth who ran it until 2005 as Nazareth House when it became part of the Pendine Park care organisation founded by Mario Kreft MBE and his wife, Gill.<\/p>\n
Pendine Park is now celebrating its 40th<\/sup> anniversary but Hillbury has been looking after Wrexham people even longer and has a unique history of its own, according to Mario.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cIt was built in 1864 for John Bury who was well known locally and was one of the founders of the Wrexham War Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cIn building the house they dug into a Bronze Age burial mound and found a number of artefacts which were given to the Wrexham Museum.<\/p>\n \u201cGill and I were looking for somewhere to open a care home in 1985 because we wanted a place suitable for our elderly grandparents which would provide the level of care we wanted for them.<\/p>\n \u201cA property in Llandudno was set up but it fell through at the last minute and Gwern Alyn became available in Wrexham which was another of the areas we were looking.<\/p>\n \u201cConverting Gwern Alyn into a care home was the start of the Pendine story and choosing Wrexham was the right decision for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Gwern Alyn is next door to Hillbury which became available in 2003 and opened under the Pendine banner in 2005.<\/p>\n Both care homes are run by manager Cindy Clutton, who began her own career in care in 1982 aged just 15, working at weekends and in the school holidays at Nazareth House, as Hillbury was then called.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cMy mum was there and she had always worked in care and I went there when I was still in school and I enjoyed it so when I finished school I went on to take a YTS – Youth Training Scheme – in care and started with Clwyd County Council in their home at Wren\u2019s Nest in Rhosddu.<\/p>\n \u201cI joined Pendine in 2000 at Gwern Alyn and they took over Nazareth House and I became acting manager of Gwern Alyn and Hillbury and the rest is history.<\/p>\n \u201cMario had encouraged me to my Level Five management course and gave me the support I needed and I\u2019ve been at the two homes ever since.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve really enjoyed it. It\u2019s a challenging job but it\u2019s also very rewarding when you see the residents all smiling and happy.<\/p>\n \u201cI still love coming to work each day.\u201d<\/p>\n Mario: \u201cWe started with 14 residents at Gwern Alyn and now we\u2019re up to 440 at our nine care homes in Wrexham and Caernarfon.<\/p>\n \u201cLater this year we will welcome our 6,000th<\/sup> resident and at the same time we employ 864 people and what we do supports the NHS.<\/p>\n \u201cFour decades on and Pendine Park has become a very, very important community asset for Wrexham and 10 years ago we opened Bryn Seiont Newydd in Caernarfon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were the very first in the UK to deliver what in those days were NVQs \u2013 National Vocational Qualifications \u2013 although the skills you need as a carer are not something everyone can do and you don\u2019t really learn them at a college.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about empathy and emotional intelligence and you probably either have or don\u2019t have that by the time you leave primary school.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many people can\u2019t do it or won\u2019t do it but these are very important skills and it\u2019s a sad indictment of our society that they\u2019re so undervalued.\u201d<\/p>\n Mario and Gill are both passionate about the arts which have become a \u201cgolden thread\u201d running through daily life at all their care homes.<\/p>\n They became the first care organisation in Wales to employ an artist in residence and 30 years later the person they appointed, Sarah Edwards, is still their working with them as a consultant, along with a musician in residence, a creative practitioner and an army of enrichment co-ordinators.<\/p>\n The couple have also launched the Pendine Arts and Communities Trust which supports a host of community and arts-related activities, including the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod where they sponsor the Pendine International Voice of the Future competition and the North Wales International Music Festival where they sponsor the Pendine Young Musician of Wales competition.<\/p>\n Gill, a chartered accountant, also set up the influential Wrexham Business Professionals group to promote regional prosperity and shine a light on the enterprise and expertise that exists in the region.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Mario has also found time to become a fearless campaigner for the social care sector, founding both Care Forum Wales, which represents around 500 independent providers, and the Wales Care Awards, to recognise frontline care workers.<\/p>\n