Pensioner, 84, honoured for running charity shop for 30 years

Nearly 30 years ago Dawn Bullock, 84, opened the Epilepsy Charity Shop on Tower Hill, Hessle, near Hull.

Since then she and other volunteers have worked tirelessly to raise money for equipment for local hospitals, Castle Hill Hospital at Cottingham and Hull Royal Infirmary.

Mrs Bulllock, who started suffering from epilepsy when she was 14, says running the charity shop "keeps her going" .

This weekend she and secretary Diane Wharram, 73, will be recognised at a Civic Reception at Hessle Town Hall for services to the community.

To last July the shop has made £379,341 - which works out at around £13,500 per year. It has paid for heat scanners, ventilators and detection alarms and hundreds of monitors.

Mrs Wharram said she couldn't have done it without the efforts of the other volunteers who work alongside her.

And she said she has no plans to retire: "It keeps me going. It feels as though I am helping someone else.

"Epilepsy doesn't stop you having a life - the only thing I don't do is swim.

"I just feel doing this makes epilepsy better known in this area - and if someone were to give us a shop in The Square (in Hessle) we would make a bomb."

Trevor Elton, who used to work in the shop and asked Hessle Town Council to consider giving them an award, said the pair deserved a medal: "They don't get any thanks for it so I thought I'll see what I can do.

"I am hoping they will end up with an MBE or a BEM. I am surprised it hasn't been done years ago."