Lesley Harvey had four sons. The eldest would now be aged 18, the twins 16 and the youngest eight. But she only has one son left. Stephen and the twins, Mark and Ian, all died of Sanfillipo, a degenerative disease that rendered them speechless and confined them to wheelchairs. Nicholas, the youngest, is fine.

Lesley, 42, of Boars Hill, is not sure now how she coped with three mentally and physically handicapped children and a newborn baby, but somehow she did.

"I just got on with it," she says simply. But knowing that if she got ill, or needed to get away, there was always someone there, 24 hours a day, was a big help.

Throughout the depths of despair there was always a beacon of hope at Oxford's Helen House Hospice. Over a period of ten years, Lesley and her husband Paul would drop off the kids at Helen House and go on holiday, out for dinner or just away from their everyday nightmare.

And they could do it confident in the knowledge that their three disabled sons were being looked after by the best.

Lesley says: "I was reluctant at first. Any parent would be, leaving their children with strangers. But I needn't have worried.

"We always tried to go abroad, otherwise we would have just sat at home and twiddled our thumbs. Looking back now, I don't honestly know how we would have managed without the hospice."

Stephen died eight years ago aged ten, Ian five years ago at the age of 11, and Mark three years ago, aged 13.

It was to Helen House that Lesley and Paul took all three when they died, there that the children's bodies were laid out, and there that the family were comforted.

But before they died the boys enjoyed the gardens, the jacuzzi and the company. They relished their visits and Lesley fondly referred to the stays as an MoT, a recharging of the batteries.

The success of the Oxford children's hospice has proved contagious and 16 have now sprung up in England alone.

But as a result, donations have dwindled as cash is spread further, and a new publicity campaign is the only answer, hence the establishment of hospice awareness week this week.

Helen House, off Cowley Road, was founded in 1982 by Sister Frances Dominica, who cared for a friend's dying child and realised there should be respite care available to all parents in similar circumstances.

It opened in a blaze of publicity and the money flooded in. It was, after all, the first of its kind in the world.

Since then hundreds of children with life-limiting and terminal illnesses have stayed and died there.

It may sound all doom and gloom, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is the most welcoming, cheerful, peaceful environment you can imagine and every parent that walks through the door must bless Sister Frances.

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