Local Care Home Brings Resident’s Lifelong Passion to Life
At Kings Park Care Home in Ferndown, fulfilling residents’ wishes is at the heart of what we do. Recently, we had the joy of helping one of our residents, Claire, reconnect with a lifelong love, dance.
Claire began ballet dancing as a child and quickly found herself performing on stage. “I wouldn’t do anything else,” she recalled with a smile. That early passion turned into a remarkable career in teaching. For 30 years, Claire ran her own dance school in Cockfosters, teaching ballet to children and adults alike. Her dedication and talent left a lasting impact, with some of her students going on to perform in the prestigious Royal Ballet.
When Claire later moved to Dorset, she continued sharing her expertise and love of dance. She taught ballroom and sequence dancing in various locations including Parkstone, Highcliffe, and Bournemouth, for another two decades. Her influence reached far and wide—so much so that her cousin recently bumped into his dentist, who fondly remembered “I always stood up straighter when Claire was around,” she had said, admiring Claire’s beautiful posture.
To honour Claire’s incredible legacy and lifelong love of the art form, our Kings Park Team, arranged something truly special. As part of our “Resident’s Wish” initiative, Claire was invited to attend ‘Inspirations’ a dazzling local dance performance featuring a mix of styles including tap, ballet, and modern dance.
Claire had a front row, bird’s-eye view of the entire show and was absolutely mesmerised especially by the youngest ballerinas, some just four or five years old. “They were adorable,” she said. The icing on the cake came after the performance when the kind show organisers arranged for Claire to meet two of the young ballerinas, Fifi and Lydia-Rose and have a photograph taken with them. This thoughtful gesture truly made her day.
On the way home, Claire couldn’t stop smiling. “I’ve had such an amazing time,” she said,
Jenn May, General Manager at the home, said: “We believe that every moment is worth cherishing, moments like these are filled with emotion and memories and a reminder of how powerful it can be to honour a person’s past and celebrate their passions. We want everyone we care for to know how important they are to us here at Kings Park. It is testament to the hard work and dedication of the team here in making our residents’ dreams come true. It was wonderful to see how happy Claire was – and the staff loved being a part of this as well.”
