In a week-long special, Fran Bardsley speaks to staff, children, and families whose lives have been touched by the work of Helen House in Oxford.

Frances Reid and Theresa Kent were two of the first parents to benefit from the pioneering care at the hospice in Leopold Street, Oxford.

Mrs Reid, 58, of Appleford, near Abingdon, took her son Richard, who had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, for respite care in the first year it opened - starting a long relationship with the hospice.

She said: "At that stage he was 10 and was just going into a wheelchair. We loved him to bits and would do anything for him but it was so tiring because you can't do anything spontaneous. Because we lived so locally we never needed to stay in Helen House ourselves so we would take him up and drop him. He just liked being there."

Richard, who was a pupil at Larkmead School, Abingdon, and had been planning to go to Oxford Brookes University, visited many times until he died at Helen House, aged 18.

Mrs Reid said: "He had a wonderful time there and it was just a wonderful family place, so friendly and happy. They never prejudged us. They would talk to us and learn from us what Richard was like and how he liked to be handled. They were always there for us and it meant that we could have some other normal life and just relax."

Richard had a healthy sister, Annabelle, who was six years his junior and Mrs Reid said the care Helen House provided meant she and her husband Lionel could spend more time with her.

So touched was Mrs Reid by the care, love and support Helen House provided for the family, she applied to volunteer at the first Helen House shop when it opened four years ago. She was offered the position of manager, and still runs the shop in Oxford's Covered Market.

She said: "They have given so much to us unflinchingly. They have never questioned anything and just helped us. I felt I wanted to repay them somehow. This was a way to help raise money and help the others."

Theresa Kent, of Milton, lost her two daughters Nicola and Kerina White to Werdnig Hoffman Spinal Muscular Atrophy, within a week of each other at the end of 1985.

The girls had been receiving care from Helen House - and staying in adjoining rooms - since December 1981, just weeks after the hospice first opened. Ms Kent said: "When we first visited, Nicola was so impressed she wanted to stay imediately. Sister Frances said she could and she was so keen I let her. Helen House gave me the opportunity for some respite. It was a blessing."

She said Nicola in particular, who was 13 when she died, made many close friends at Helen House and would sometimes telephone from school to arrange a visit.

She said: "The staff were fantastic and I felt confident leaving the girls there. I would not have got my annual break if it wasn't for Helen House.

"It was crucial to me having some sort of normality in life. I have never stopped going there. I go to the bereaved parents service every year.

"And after the girls died, Frances offered me a job in the bakery over the road. It helps to meet other people who have been through the same experiences."