Walter welcomed back to nursery after a year away
81-YEAR-OLD RETURNS TO RUN GARDEN CLUB AFTER SHIELDING
ELDERLY Walter Minns got a hero’s welcome when he returned to the nursery where he runs a gardening club for the tots after they were forced to spend more than a year apart due to the Covid pandemic.
Walter, 81, runs the popular Walter’s Gardening Club every week at Sancton’s Old School House Day Nursery, where the kids adore getting muddy planting seeds and digging allotments under his watchful eye.
The club had been running for 18 months when Covid struck, and Walter, who has a heart condition, had to stay at home while the children, all aged four and under, kept the garden going in his absence.
But this week, to smiles all round, he was back after a 394-day absence.
Owner Sally Rustomji, Walter’s daughter, said her dad was sorely missed and everyone is “thrilled” to welcome him back.
She said: “My dad used to do all of our maintenance, until it got a bit much for him, so we asked him to start the gardening club instead.
“He used to come over every Wednesday and he’d always research and plan his sessions, and it really kept him going and gave him a focus as he’s a very active 81.
“But then lockdown came, and he had to shield.”
Walter initially uploaded videos he made from his home which the children avidly followed, but he stopped in September last year when the weather turned colder.
Sally said the children missed seeing him - until they were all happily reunited this week.
“The children’s faces when they saw him, it was just wonderful to see. Walter has had both vaccines now, so we felt it was safe to come back, and it’s just been brilliant to have him here.
“The lesson he’d planned for the week before lockdown was all stored away waiting for him, all the pots were still stacked, so he got everything out and carried on with the lesson from March 2020 that he never got to do.
“The children don’t normally see 80-year-olds as their own grandparents are much younger, and they really respond to his calmness and his knowledge.
“Walter found out in February that he would be returning in May, and he’s been planning ever since, which has been so good for his mental health and wellbeing.
“There were dark times last year when he used to ask me if I thought he’d ever come back, and we just didn’t know.
“He is such an inspiration and it melts my heart seeing how the children respond to him.”