The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
‘Aren’t we lucky?’ A gift from Maggie to us
In May 1993, author and garden designer Maggie Keswick Jencks was told her breast cancer had returned and given two to three months to live.
She joined an advanced chemotherapy trial and lived for another 18 months. During that time, she and her husband, Charles Jencks, worked closely with her medical team, which included oncology nurse Laura Lee, now Maggie’s chief executive, to develop a new approach to cancer care.
In order to live more positively with cancer, Maggie and Charles believed people needed information that would allow them to be an informed participant in their medical treatment, stress-reducing strategies, psychological support and the opportunity to meet other people in similar circumstances in a relaxed, domestic atmosphere.
Maggie was determined that people should not “lose the joy of living in the fear of dying” and the day before she died, in June 1995, she sat in her garden, face to the sun, and said: “Aren’t we lucky?”
In November 1996, the first Maggie’s Centre opened in Edinburgh and what Maggie had planned became real.
Maggie’s provides free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends, following the ideas about cancer care originally laid out by Maggie Keswick Jencks.
Designed by world-famous architect Frank Gehry and opened in 2003 in the grounds of Ninewells Hospital, Maggie’s Dundee was the first new-build Maggie’s Centre.
Laura Lee became Maggie’s first employee in 1996. She recalls her first meeting with Maggie and Charles Jencks back in 1991. “I was working as a clinical nurse specialist at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh,” she says.
“When they came to the clinic they would be armed with masses of information and articles, and Maggie immersed herself in the plans to create the centre; the day before she died we sat together on her bed surrounded by papers and designs.”
Maggie’s Dundee costs £540,000 a year to run and is visited by nearly 14,000 people affected by cancer per year. The centre’s aim is to raise enough from the Penguin Parade to run it for a year.
“Maggie’s is all about community and that’s why we love the penguins project,” says Laura. “It is wonderful that the event will attract visitors, provide free days out for children and families, help create special moments and memories that will last a lifetime, encourage healthy lifestyles and, all the while, helping Maggie’s Dundee to provide essential support to people with cancer, as well as family and friends.”