Contents:
- Editor's welcome
- John Kay - Man of Rochdale
- Photography by Karl
- Rochdale Cycling Club
- Rochdale Borough Police Force
- Northern Baroque Orchestra
- Junction 21 Executive Travel
- ‘Keeping Rochdale Dancing’ for 70 years
- Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy
- Skylight Circus Arts
- Interview with Keith Hicks - Rochdale AFC
- Rare Innocenti Mini Cooper
- Birds at Hollingworth Lake
- Noddy's Puncture
- Addams Family - Theatre Review
- Take a walk in Healey Dell
- Hairdressing Trend - Precision Haircut
- Carole Kelly - Woman of Rochdale »
- Scones & Strawberry Jam recipe
- Burn those calories but don't singe your skin
- Plastic-free glitter created in Rochdale
Summer 2019Carole Kelly - Woman of Rochdale
Carole Kelly is the Woman of Rochdale 2019.
Carole, from Wardle, became the full-time carer for her son Josh Kelly, who at the age of six months was confirmed to have ‘extensive brain damage’, in May 2016.
She began the Jolly Josh group in September 2017 as “a coping mechanism and distraction” after discovering there were no groups for young disabled children in Rochdale.
The toddler stay and play session was set up by Carole and her husband James with the hope to bring families together, provide peer to peer support, share experiences, and eliminate isolation, especially for children with disabilities and special needs throughout the borough.
Receiving the award, Carole said: “I wanted to organise a group with no questions asked, where everyone could feel included and not isolated, and where we all understand what one another are going through.”
After his condition deteriorated, Josh was taken to Derian House children’s hospice, where he died on 27 August 2017, just one month before the Jolly Josh group was due to begin.
Based at Springside School, the Jolly Josh baby and toddler group continues today in his legacy, meeting every Thursday from 9am - 12noon, and was awarded charitable status in April 2018.